Children, the most vulnerable
By Yogesh Vajpeyi Barmer, Rajasthan : When flash floods hit the Thar Desert of Rajasthan two weeks back, Of the 104 bodies fished out in the worst affected Barmer district till now, 46 have been identified as those of children below the age of 15, says District Collector Subir Kumar. The figure is likely to rise as Indian Navy divers are still trying to fish out bodies of three children swept away in Malwa village. More than half of the 300-and-odd persons reported missing are children, points out says Bhuvanesh Jain, a social activist. "The toll would have been higher but for acts of bravery by neighbours and other community leaders who risked their lives to save children," says Moinuddin of Malwa village near India-Pakistan border. Still grieving for their lost children, the ravaged people are now confronted the uphill task of preserving and protecting young survivors. The case of Malti Bai of Kawas village typifies the challenge they face. The thirty-two-year young mother considered herself lucky when she managed to escape to safety with her newly born twins. Named Gopal and Ganpad, they were just ten days old when the disaster struck. As she watches the slowly receding waters from an adjacent sand mound, she wonders if they would survive the aftermath of floods. "They were born very fragile and I breast fed them. How can I do so now when I am myself not getting two meals a day?" Malti asks, cuddling the twins protectively. Everyone in the Madan Ki Saini rescue camp, where 16 other families are stranded, shares her concern. Kawas, Malva and Bhatata villages, with a combined population of 10,000, have been under water since Aug 21 when three days of freak rainfall flooded large areas of the district. Barmer is a sparsely populated district on India's border with Pakistan. Nearly 800,000 of its population, spread across 28, 387 sq km area, have been hit by the floods. Several hamlets and small villages have been wiped out. Over 300 persons are feared to have died and nearly 2,000 are stranded atop the sand mounds surrounded by waters. Thousands of homes have been damaged and crops worth Rs.300 million completely wiped out. The floods caught the people totally unprepared. 'I have not seen a flood like this in my life. My father never talked about something like this," says Teja Ram, 72-year-old farmer from Kawas village. 'The rains were a freak phenomenon as there is no record of a heavy deluge in the region in the last two centuries,' agrees Anil Chhangani, a scientist at Johdpur's Jai Narain Vyas University. The children are the most vulnerable group among those who have survived, say social activists engaged in relief operations.
''There is marginal increase in gastroenteritis and other water borne diseases cases, but the situation is under control''-Dr Satish Kumar, State Representative, UNICEF, Rajasthan Health experts warn that there could be an outbreak of other water-borne diseases like typhoid, jaundice and malaria in the flooded areas if the administration doesn't clear out the stagnant water. UNICEF teams in Barmer are supporting government and community efforts to ward off such a situation. The education system in the flooded areas is in shambles. Over three dozen school buildings have been damaged. Another 40 odd schools are inaccessible. "We want the children to return to the schools at the earliest, but our first priority is to supply them clean drinking water and ensure their health," says a UNICEF team leader, Dr Pavitra Mohan. Supported by the UNICEF, teams of government and private doctors are working round the clock to provide urgent health care in the affected areas. All the children in rescue camps are being administrated measles vaccines and vitamin A supplements. It may be some time before the schools start functioning. But the Anganwadis providing nutritional support to children and pregnant and lactating mothers have been reactivated.
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