
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 31, 1993                   TAG: 9307310183
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW DELHI, INDIA                                LENGTH: Short

MONSOONS CLAIM 3,000 LIVES IN INDIA

The raging brown waters of the Yamuna River devoured Babbo Begum's livelihood last week, sweeping away every tattered scrap the rag dealer had collected.

The waters rose so rapidly that Begum and her husband barely had time to snatch their sleeping 6-year-old daughter and join the mob of screaming neighbors in the late-night race to save their lives. Within minutes, the entire East New Delhi colony was under six feet of swirling water.

Monsoon floods of the last several weeks have claimed an estimated 3,000 lives and have destroyed the livelihoods of millions. The wreckage of lives litters river banks and valleys in a swath across northern India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan - where extraordinarily heavy rains, overdevelopment and poor water management have combined to create the most destructive flooding in years.

These are societies with ragged safety nets: housing insurance isnonexistent and government relief services consist of little more than a sack of flour and subsidized kerosene sales for the displaced. - The Washington Post

Keywords:
FATALITY

by CNB