Flood survivors hungry and desperate

NEW DELHI, India - Floodwaters continued to rise Tuesday in West Bengal state, and an aid worker said some stranded people were so hungry and desperate that they were jumping from treetops into passing relief boats.

More than 700 people have died in India and Bangladesh since Sept. 18 when late monsoon rains flowed over riverbanks and dams, drowning the tree-lined frontier between the two countries under 10 feet of water.

An additional 329 people have been killed by flooding in Southeast Asia, where the Mekong River has burst its banks.

The floods left more than 10 million people homeless in eastern India; some 125,000 were reported homeless in Bangladesh.

Grant Cassidy, a relief worker for World Vision, described desperate scenes near Ranaghat, 40 miles north of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal state.

Cassidy and a relief team found refugees huddling under tarpaulin sheets in muddy fields with scarce food supplies. He said floodwaters were rising two to three inches a day.

''People are living on rooftops and climbing into trees,'' Cassidy said in an interview from Calcutta, adding that some were so tired and hungry that if a boat went by, they were flinging themselves from the trees into the craft.

''All sorts of ... small makeshift craft are bringing people in,'' he said. Cassidy's team walked thigh-deep in water to reach refugee camps on patches of higher ground. When they walked back a few hours later on Monday, the water was waist high, although it was sunny and hot, he said.

''There are not enough boats,'' Cassidy said. ''The national highway is just an island. The military is doing its operations from there.''

Calcutta itself was on alert after nearby sandbagged sluice gates collapsed and floodwaters seeped into the city. Police advised people in low-lying areas to move to safer places.

Boatmen in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, have refused to carry marooned villagers, claiming they were never paid for last year's flood rescue work. Indian officials said a strike by state administrative officers further hampered the rescue operations.

Cassidy said no medicine had been delivered to fight waterborne disease, and local agencies were cooking pots of rice and lentils for rationing. The military has made some air drops, but the neediest people could still be inaccessible, he said.

In Bangladesh, the army used speedboats to rescue some villagers, said regional politician Ayub Hossain. ''The army is focusing on evacuation, not on distribution of food and water.''

Officials say at least 125,000 people have lost their homes in Bangladesh - mainly mud and thatch huts - but unofficial estimates say as many as 250,000 could be homeless. Authorities acknowledge 500,000 people were marooned in their villages with no way out except by boat.