Flooding Creates Dire Need

As waterborne diseases continue to claim lives in the South Asian countries hit by devastating floods, health officials are struggling to keep up and impoverished families who have lost livestock and harvests are in desperate need of emergency assistance, according to World Bank officials.

Late this week, Shantayanan Devarajan, the World Bank's chief economist for South Asia, issued an appeal for cash transfers as an immediate mechanism to stave off disaster. Cash transfers provide cash or vouchers to households directly, as opposed to providing services or commodities such as food supplies.

In previous natural disasters such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, floods in Bangladesh three years ago and the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan, this swift injection of assistance proved effective. Cash transfers in emergencies give households flexibility, allowing families to spend the money according to their needs.

This year's South Asian monsoon floods have killed about 2,000 people and left millions homeless in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal.

People affected by the floods are "losing their homes, livestock and assets," said Devarajan. "Cash transfers are a way of enabling these people to rebuild their lives. It also helps stimulate the markets, which might have been depressed in the wake of a disaster."

In Bangladesh alone, 300 people were killed and 8 million displaced, according to news reports from the region.

Each day, about 700 new patients suffering from diarrhea have been checking into just one crowded hospital in Dhaka, the capital, the Reuters news agency reported. Meanwhile, bursting sewage pipes continue to deluge communities in remote rural areas, and rotting animal carcasses and mosquitoes are spreading disease to inhabitants with no access to medical care. World Bank officials said 40,000 cases of diarrhea have been reported, and they projected the situation will get worse.

"We are struggling to cope," Prodip Bardhan, acting chief physician at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, told Reuters. As is often the case in crisis situations, some pharmacists have been sharply raising prices for rehydration fluid. The World Health Organization estimates that there is a "serious shortage of medical supplies amounting to $2.5 million."

Xian Zhu, World Bank country director for Bangladesh, based in Dhaka, said rivers surrounding the capital and 12 miles east in Narayanganj have continued rising and are running above danger levels.

"The low-lying areas in the eastern part of Dhaka are already affected, and this may continue to deteriorate if further rains set in," he said. Zhu said the military-backed interim government has been working closely with relief agencies and distributors.

News agencies reported from Bangladesh that government and aid workers were using helicopters and boats in efforts to reach the worst-flooded areas with food packages and clean water.

The relief organization ActionAid issued a statement describing foreign assistance as "lukewarm" and warned that time and money were running out.

In spite of warnings indicating that nongovernmental organizations are understaffed and becoming overextended, the Indian government has said it needs no outside help.

The country also turned down aid offers in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.

Onkar Kedia, one of India's Home Affairs Ministry spokesmen, recalled India's self-sufficiency during the 2004 disaster, saying India helped other affected countries at the time.