Millions urged to stay off streets as monsoon death toll rises
Dead bodies and carcasses of animals were still strewn across parts of Bombay and its suburbs from last week’s flooding, raising fears of disease, TV and officials said.
Relief commissioner Krishna Vatsa said: “I hope there is no epidemic.”
The monsoon rains in the region have been the heaviest for almost a century and, yesterday, western India was drenched again.
Police Commissioner AN Roy said: “We are appealing to people not to travel unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Officials said fatalities were rising as more bodies were dug out from villages flattened by landslides south of Bombay.
In Raigarh district, 150 km (93 miles) south of Bombay, about 200 are dead or missing. At least 910 confirmed deaths have been reported in the state, police said.
Vatsa said: “The death toll in Raigarh is likely to go up by another 100 or so because more dead bodies are coming up. It (the total) may touch around 1,000, including about 400 deaths in Bombay.”
Hundreds have died due to landslides, drowning, electrocution in flooded streets, and even by suffocating in their cars as they waited out the rains for many hours.
The damage bill will run to billions of rupees.
Vivek Bharat, advisor to the Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said: “One understands the rains are unprecedented but, having said that, the fact is that years of neglect of infrastructure has showed up.
“Something really needs to be done about it.”
Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said yesterday’s rains had raised fears of new landslides in and around the city.
“We are trying to shift people from danger areas so that no tragedy occurs again,” he said on NDTV television, adding authorities had asked the army to be on standby.
Bombay, or Mumbai, is home to many of India’s biggest companies.
Its airport, the busiest in the country, is backlogged.
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