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CNN Live Saturday

Floods Devastate Eastern India

Aired July 21, 2001 - 15:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: Less than two years after Eastern India was devastated by a killer cyclone, the region once again is facing nature's fury. Much of Orissa state is completely flooded, trapping hundreds of thousands of residents. CNN's Satinder Bindra explains how one of the hardest-hit communities is coping.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SATINDER BINDRA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Life in a state that resembles a lake -- 10,000 villages here are submerged, more than one million people marooned. Two thousand residents of Pradhanpada (ph), a small agricultural community on India's Eastern coast, are just receiving some help. Volunteers from a nearby town wade through waist-deep water to bring some food and medicine.

With hundreds suffering from skin diseases, fevers and colds, the newly arrived medical supplies disappear fast. But what the medicines can't treat is fear.

GUNANIDHI SWAIN, RESIDENT (through translator): Everybody is going to die in this flood. I will pray to god to look after me and all the people.

BINDRA: Two years ago, a cyclone in this area killed 10,000 people and flattened several communities, including Pradhanpada (ph). But before residents here could get their lives back on track, they're having to deal once again with nature's fury.

SWAIN (through translator): At night when the water rushed in, the same wall of my hut that I had repaired after the cyclone collapsed on me.

BINDRA: Gunanidhi Swain feels he's seriously injured his back. But with no doctors available, he's forced to just settle in for a back rub.

(on camera): For five days, people in this area have been living without electricity. Now, as the weather office predicts more rain, it will be several days before people here can put their lives back together again.

(voice-over): People here have no insurance. They're also desperately poor. So to help them, every morning the Indian army loads up six helicopters with food, water and medicines. The supplies are dropped to tens of thousands of marooned villagers. Officials estimate they've already air dropped 120 tons of food.

Very little of that food, though, has reached Pradhanpada (ph). Here, straw huts remain under several feet of water. Raghunath Naik shows us why he's moved his family several kilometers away to a shelter.

RAGHUNATH NAIK, RESIDENT (through translator): We were eating dinner when flood waters rushed in to our hut. I picked up my wife, who is blind, and we just ran for our lives.

BINDRA: As the sun sets over Pradhanpada (ph), many now fear the spread of water borne diseases. And with no clear indication when all this water will recede, many people here say they'll be spending the night on their roofs.

Satinder Bindra, CNN, Pradhanpada (ph), Eastern India.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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