A flood of woes

The flood in Assam has put children,women and the elderly in a vulnerable position

Twelve-year-old Dhanmaya Chetri and other children of Bokabeel village,six km south of this town on NH-52,were excited when they found the hand pump at the local chowk slowly emerging as the floodover 10 feet high last Sundaybegan to recede. The people had,in fact,started pumping water from it until Dr Rupak Kumar Baruah,senior medical officer at the Naduar primary health centre,intervened. All the hand pumps in these villages,which were under high floods for almost a week,have been contaminated,putting people at risk of water-borne diseases. Some have already started complaining of diarrhoea,bacillary dysentery and high fever,and most of them are children, Dr Baruah says.

More than 35,000 people from at least 60 flood-affected villages in the Naduar circle have been put up in 37 relief camps in the past 12 days. Most of them are women,children and the elderly. Across the state,of more than 21 lakh people directly affected by floods,at least 16 lakh are women and children. Of the 117 deaths due to flood officially declared till Thursday,66 have been children23 girls and a few less than one year old. Eight are missing.

While adult males can escape by swimming to safety or climbing trees and rooftops,it is the children,women and elderly who are the worst affected, says RP Barua,additional deputy commissioner,Sonitpur,who is camping here to supervise the relief operations,for which the administration has roped in the army and NDRF.

More children and women have been suffering from various ailments related to floods,says Brig Mahendra Bhatnagar of the 77 Mountain Brigade,who has been heading a team of 1,000 army personnel in rescuing and evacuating the marooned people after the Brahmaputra broke away about 500 metres of the Biswanath-Panpur embankment which had withstood the fury of the river since it was rebuilt after a major flood in 1984.

The army and civil doctors deployed in the flood-affected villages have attended to a large number of people complaining of dysentery,diarrhea,gastro-enteritis and skin diseases. The biggest worry is that a large number of carcasses of cattle and other dead animals have been washed in the floods. This is worsening the already severe shortage of safe drinking water. Add to this people defecating in the open. The next few weeks are going to be crucial, says Dr Arun Kumar,an army doctor.

In Guwahati,alarm bells are ringing at several places. The priorities not only include rescuing and evacuating people and putting them into relief camps,but also taking care of sanitation to avert an epidemic. We have issued instructions to the districts to not only adhere to the disaster relief norms of the Union home ministry,but also ensure that various agencies and programmes work in coordination to provide relief and prevent outbreak of an epidemic, says VK Pipersenia,who heads the Assam State Disaster Management Authority and the relief and rehabilitation department in the state.

With the state relief manual not specifically defining the special needs of infants,children and lactating and pregnant women,we have written to the state government what exactly should be provided for these vulnerable segments, says Jeero Master,who heads the state UNICEF unit. UNICEF suggests that young children should be provided 1,000 to 1,200 kilo calories each per day,comprising 30-40 per cent of fat and 12 per cent proteins such as pulses,soya and groundnut,and special care should be taken of pregnant and lactating women. We have strongly recommended against use of alternative infant foods which go against the provisions of the Infant Milk Substitute Act. We have also suggested to the state government to intensify the ongoing Vitamin A campaign in the flood-affected areas, Master says. UNICEF has already provided sodium hypochloride tablets to the state government to disinfect water.

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Assam Relief Manual,prepared in 1976,hardly meets the requirements of changing times. That is exactlywhy we have tried to ensure a proper convergence of various programmes targeting women and children during disasters like these, Pipersenia says. The manual only prescribes 600 gms of rice per adult a day and 400 gms per child a day in addition to 200 gms of dal and 25 gms of salt for each relief camp inmate irrespective of age. It,however,is silent on infants,lactating mothers,pregnant women and the elderly.

The state NRHM mechanism is also working overtime to prevent outbreak of an epidemic. It is a difficult period that we foresee. While children and women are anyway the most vulnerable in such situations,we have put the entire health mechanism on full alert. At least one doctor and one para-medic are on round-the-clock duty at a relief camp,while Mobile Medical Units have been diverted to flood-affected areas, says Prateek Hajela,mission director of the state NRHM.

Sanitation problem

Sanitation and hygiene have become major issues after the flood. How can I shift to a relief camp where there is no proper toilet and privacy for my grown-up daughters? says Renu Saikia,a resident of a village near Sootea. Saikia,a widow,has lost her entire belongings. Along with her two grown-up daughters and a son,she has put up a tent on the road in front of her village to avoid shifting to a relief camp. When we dont even have a house,how can you ask why we defecate in the open? says Manjil Hussain of village Pekekaiti,who has lost six milch cattle,two pairs of oxen and 100 ducks,apart from his house and a granary that had 30 maunds of rice.