16 lakh people reel from UP deluge

LUCKNOW: After Bihar, it is Uttar Pradesh which is reeling from the onslaught of calamitous floods. Already, the toll of human lives has crossed the thousand mark, though the government figures are much lower. Besides, over 16 lakh people are affected, over a lakh houses damaged or destroyed, and scores of villages have ceased to exist.

As in Bihar, water released from Nepal has inundated hundreds of villages in at least four eastern UP districts on the Indo-Nepal border. Due to excessive rains, most of the major rivers in UP are now flowing above or close to the danger mark, wreaking death and destruction wherever they meander.

“Due to the political tug-of-war (between the Central and UP governments), we can’t even expect a special relief package from the Centre (which recently announced a Rs1,000-crore flood relief package for Bihar),” said a senior official.

Even as per the official statistics, as many as 21 of the 71 districts have been declared flood-affected. Of these, five, including the state capital Lucknow, are severely hit.
Chief minister Mayawati said at a recent press conference that as many as 3,691 villages were reeling from floods out of which in 674, thousands of people had been marooned as these villages had been surrounded by water from all sides. She quoted 725 as the number of people killed in the latest floods.