Search for victims after Mumbai building collapses amid floods
There are floods in many parts of the world.
Here’s a report on monsoon flooding in South Asia, followed by a story about Sierra Leone and the response of Medecins sans Frontieres to that disaster.
See Kathleen’s post and Tiara’s article for ways to respond.
South Asia floods: Mumbai building collapses as monsoon rains wreak havoc
The Guardian, Aug. 31, 2017
Heavy monsoon rains have brought Mumbai to a halt for a second day as the worst floods to strike south Asia in years continued to exact a deadly toll.
Flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh has left parts of cities underwater, as storm moves on to Pakistan
More than 1,200 people have died across India, Bangladesh and Nepal as a result of flooding, with 40 million affected by the devastation. At least six people, including two toddlers, were among the victims in and around India’s financial capital.
The devastating floods have also destroyed or damaged 18,000 schools, meaning that about 1.8 million children cannot go to classes, Save the Children warned on Thursday.
The charity said that hundreds of thousands of children could fall permanently out of the school system if education was not prioritised in relief efforts.
“We haven’t seen flooding on this scale in years and it’s putting the long-term education of an enormous number of children at great risk. From our experience, the importance of education is often under-valued in humanitarian crises and we simply cannot let this happen again. We cannot go backwards,” said Rafay Hussain, Save the Children’s general manager in Bihar state.
“We know that the longer children are out of school following a disaster like this the less likely it is that they’ll ever return. That’s why it’s so important that education is properly funded in this response, to get children back to the classroom as soon as it’s safe to do so and to safeguard their futures.
On Wednesday, police said a 45-year-old woman and a one-year-old child, members of the same family, had died after their home in the north-eastern suburb of Vikhroli crumbled late on Tuesday, and a two-year-old girl had died in a wall collapse.
They said another three people had died after being swept away in the neighbouring city of Thane.
The rains have led to flooding in a broad arc stretching across the Himalayan foothills in Bangladesh, Nepal and India, causing landslides, damaging roads and electric towers and washing away tens of thousands of homes and vast swaths of farmland.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) says the fourth significant floods this year have affected more than 7.4 million people in Bangladesh, damaging or destroying more than 697,000 houses.
They have killed 514 in India’s eastern state of Bihar, where 17.1 million have been affected, disaster management officials have been quoted as saying. In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, about 2.5 million have been affected and the death toll stood at 109 on Tuesday, according to the Straits Times. The IFRC said landslides in Nepal had killed more than 100 people.
The IFRC – working with the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and the Nepal Red Cross – has launched appeals to support almost 200,000 vulnerable people with immediate relief and long-term help with water and sanitation, health and shelter.
Streets in Mumbai have turned into rivers and people waded through waist-deep waters. On Tuesday, the city received about 12.7cm (5ins) of rain, paralysing public transport and leaving thousands of commuters stranded in their offices overnight.
Poor visibility and flooding also forced airport authorities to divert some flights while most were delayed by up to an hour.
The National Disaster Response Force has launched a rescue mission with police to evacuate people from low-lying areas but operations were thwarted by the continuous rain.
“The heavy rains, flooding, are delaying our rescue work. Even we are stranded,” said Amitesh Kumar, the joint police commissioner in Mumbai.
Images and video posted on social media showed the extent of the flooding.
Rainwater swamped the King Edward Memorial hospital in central Mumbai, forcing doctors to vacate the pediatric ward.
“We are worried about infections … the rain water is circulating rubbish that is now entering parts of the emergency ward,” said Ashutosh Desai, a doctor in the 1,800-bed hospital.
Although Mumbai is trying to build itself into a global financial hub, parts of the city struggle to cope during annual monsoon rains.
Floods in 2005 killed more than 500 people in the city. The majority of deaths occurred in shanty town slums, home to more than half of Mumbai’s population.
The meteorological department warned that the rains would continue for the next 24 hours.
Unabated construction on flood plains and coastal areas, as well as storm-water drains and waterways clogged by plastic garbage, have made the city increasingly vulnerable to storms.
Floods have caused devastation in many parts of India. Unprecedented rainfall in Assam in the north-east has killed more than 150 people. About 600 villages are still underwater even though the torrential rain began earlier this month.
From the US to India and China, human impact on the climate is likely to have made droughts and storms more severe – and the trend is only set to continue
Rhinos in Assam’s famous Kaziranga nature reserve had to flee to higher ground. “We get flooding every year but I have never seen anything quite like this in my life,” Ashok Baruah, a farmer, told journalists.
In Bihar, the death toll has reached 514, with people still living in makeshift huts days after the flooding started. However, the flood waters, which turned fields into lakes, appear to be receding.
In Mumbai, the rain forced nurses and doctors at the busiest hospital in the city to wade through wards knee-high in filthy water to move patients to the first floor. Outside the King Edward memorial hospital, a man going to visit his wife who was due to have a caesarean had to wade through flooded streets to reach her. Children swam or paddled down the streets lying on planks of wood.
Flood victims in the city included a doctor who fell down a manhole and another who died after being trapped in his car while waiting for the water to recede. Others living in the low-lying areas most affected by the flooding were swept away into the sea or died when walls collapsed.
As train services ground to a halt, hundreds of thousands of commuters were stranded, unable to go home.
TV commentators voiced the anger of those caught in the chaos. The TV personality Suhel Seth lashed out at the “scoundrels, rogues, villains, rascals, incompetents and useless fools” in the municipal authority for not being better prepared for the annual monsoon flooding.
The deluge brought back memories of the 2005 floods that killed more than 500 people in the city.
“Why does nothing change? Why are we left to fend for ourselves when they had weather forecasts warning them of extremely heavy rainfall?” asked the author and columnist Shobhaa De.
Sierra Leone: MSF responding to critical needs following deadly landslides in Freetown
On August 14, after two days of torrential rain, a hillside collapsed and triggered a mudslide in the mountain town of Regent on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown. Since then, almost 500 people have been announced dead, an estimated 600 people remain missing and 3,000 people have been left homeless.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have carried out assessments of most the affected communities in the area, from the initial location of the mudslide in Regent and along the densely populated river valley to the ocean at the southern side of Freetown. As the immediate medical needs have already been covered, MSF is focusing on ensuring people have access to clean water and sanitation facilities, as this is crucial both for meeting people’s urgent needs and for preventing epidemics of diseases such as malaria and cholera. Many of the villages may also be at risk of further flooding and land instability in this narrow flood-prone valley.
Our teams identified an urgent need for clean water and sanitation assistance in three communities – Pentagon, Kamyama and Jah Kingdom, which have been heavily affected by the severe flooding and mudslide. MSF has set up water-distribution sites in Pentagon and Kamyama, and is providing clean water for around 4,000 people in these communities
Lack of clean water and sanitation
The community of Jah Kingdom has been particularly hard hit; the village is cut off except for a narrow river crossing and the one existing ground well for water has been flooded and left unusable. On August 22 and 23, an MSF team carried out a distribution of water containers and buckets for 210 families and will continue to provide water and sanitation support as needed. Last Saturday, three MSF teams did detailed assessments of the most affected communities in the short but densely-populated river valley from the primary landslide location down to the ocean at the southern side of Freetown.
At the moment, displaced people are quite dispersed, many being sheltered in some central places that opened up in different communities, and it is a challenge to get a complete picture of their needs. It is essential that people living in precarious conditions are quickly provided with sufficient space in temporary shelters, in order to access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, medical care and relief items.
Given the risk of spread of water-borne diseases in such a disaster, MSF is also providing information to the affected communities about maintaining good hygiene practices and the importance of using clean water. At the same time, our teams are monitoring for any signs of these illnesses and are ready to respond in the event of an outbreak.
MSF will continue to assess the needs of people living in other affected communities in the area, including mental health needs of people who have suffered significant trauma with the loss of family members, homes and belongings.
First update: August 20, 2017
A building hit by severe flooding and a mudslide in the area around Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.
Teams from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) carried out detailed assessments of all affected communities in the small but densely-populated river valley, from the location of the landslide down to the ocean at the southern side of Freetown. Our teams identified the communities in most urgent need of water and sanitation assistance, based on population density, level of displacement, lack of clean water supply and lack of sanitation facilities.
The MSF Response
- Our teams carried out assessments of most of the affected communities in the area, from the initial location of the mudslide in Regent and along the densely populated river valley to the ocean at the southern side of Freetown. As the immediate medical needs are already covered, we are focusing on ensuring people have access to clean water and sanitation facilities, as this is crucial both for meeting people’s urgent needs, as well for preventing epidemics of diseases such as malaria and cholera. Many of the villages in this narrow, flood-prone valley may also be at risk of further flooding and land instability.
- Our teams identified an urgent need for clean water and sanitation assistance in three communities – Pentagon, Kamyama and Jah Kingdom, which were heavily affected by the severe flooding and mudslide.
- MSF has set up water distribution sites
MSF health promotion teams explain how to use relief supplies at a distribution.
in Pentagon and Kamyama, and is providing clean water for around 4,000 people in these communities.
- The community of Jah Kingdom has been particularly hard hit; the village is cut off except for a narrow river crossing, and the one existing ground well for water has been flooded and left unusable. On August 22 and 23, an MSF team carried out a distribution of water containers and buckets for 210 families and will continue to provide water and sanitation support as needed.
- At the moment displaced people are quite dispersed; many are being sheltered in some central areas that opened up in different communities, but it’s a challenge to get a complete picture of their needs. It is essential that people living in precarious conditions are quickly provided with sufficient space in all the temporary shelters, in order to access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, medical care and relief items.
- Given the risk of water-borne diseases spreading after such a disaster, we are also providing information to the affected communities about maintaining good hygiene practices and the importance of using clean water. At the same time, our teams are monitoring for any signs of these illnesses and are ready to respond in the event of an outbreak.
- We will continue to assess the needs of people living in other affected communities in the area, including mental health needs of people who have suffered significant trauma with the loss of family members, homes and belongings.