Green | August 27, 2008 | 8 comments

Food riots as Indian floods destroy 250,000 homes

source: http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINBOM28314020080827

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JanforGore
Food riots erupted on Wednesday in eastern India, where more than two million people have been forced from their homes and about 250,000 houses destroyed in what officials say are the worst floods in 50 years.

One person was killed in Madhepura district when angry villagers fought among themselves over limited supplies of food and medicines at overcrowded relief centres.

The Kosi river in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, smashed through mud embankments and changed course last week, unleashing huge walls of water that inundated hundreds of villages and towns.

The floods have since killed nearly 50 people in Bihar.

Torrential rains have killed more than 1,000 people in South Asia since the monsoon began in June, mainly in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh but also in Nepal and Bangladesh.

Some experts blame the floods on heavier monsoon rains caused by global warming, while others say authorities have failed to take enough preventive measures to improve infrastructure.

Officials said flood victims had looted grains at some places in Bihar. Others ran for miles under helicopters that were dropping food packets. One boy was killed and about 30 people were injured in Supaul district when food packets fell on them.

"We have enough stock of food grains but the problem is that we have limited means of transport to supply them among the villagers," Rajesh Kumar Gupta, a government official in Madhepura, told Reuters by telephone.

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I believe this to be due to a combination of global warming and inferior infrastructure. Again, a foretaste of what is to come for others if we continue to only talk and write about this. This is playing out in exactly the regions the IPCC warned it would. I do not believe we can any longer dismiss global warming/climate change as a reason for it.
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8 comments // Food riots as Indian floods destroy 250,000 homes

  • passjay
    • 0
      passjay  

    • My friends with all of the flooding and storms happening, you'd have to consider Al Gore's attempts at waking up the masses, some of the best enlightenment we've heard in decades.

    • 4 years ago
  • MalibuSurfer
  • unclepete
    • 0
      unclepete  
    • Image

    • I posted this a couple of days ago and also another related link prior to that. The Indian state of Bihar is in very rough conditions, not only with flooding and lack of food supply. This is also where a political leader recommended that the people eat rats.

    • 4 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • Due to soil erosion and deforestation, I think it's possible. It already happened in Myanmar. Their floods were worse from Cyclone Nargis because they cut down the forests that were their buffer to make room for people to live.

    • 4 years ago
  • voldypoo
  • Dmitri_Molotov
  • JanforGore
  • NeoDotCom
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