World

Flood hit homeless Biharis cry for help

by anamika.mis15 | October 10, 2008 at 11:59 pm

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Where all the big boss gone,Imagine a situation when you've lost everything you owned overnight and now, your plea for help is also in danger of not being heard anymore. That's what 35 lakh people are now scared of in Bihar.

Homeless after the floods in September, their stories are now no longer in the news.

There is nobody to follow up on whether the sacks of rice and bags of clothes are still being sent, nobody to track where the relief material is going or how roads need to be re-built so material can go through.

And for people living in these plastic shanties, it gets even more painful to get past each day. The gaps in relief effort can be too much to bear..

"In all disasters we hear, the village got water. This mean that a tanker came and gave water and will come again after three days. But have we ever thought does that person have anything to store that water? So, a simple bucket becomes a really big gap," said Anshu Gupta, founder-director, Goonj NGO.

It may be another few months before the flood waters recede and people even think of leaving the relief camps. The state, the Centre and countless NGOs working here say what's needed now are blankets and woolen clothes and one very important ingredient nobody usually thinks of -- sanitary napkins.

"The concept of sanitary napkins are not there. Many people are forced to use gunny bags or ash. But in situations where people haven't been able to change clothes for 20-25 days, you can imagine their state," said Anshu.

Appeasing the Kosi river may help these people feel like nobody's giving up on them. The only way they'll know for certain is if their story can still make the nation react with the knowledge that if these faces disappear from national imagination their survival will be at stake.