INDIA: The Floods Came

Across eastern India and Pakistan, monsoon rains swept in mighty torrents between the Himalayas and the sea. In the heart of the populous Ganges valley, 10,000 villages crumbled and vanished, and farmers shared tree trunks with cobras in the worst floods since 1871. In the coastal state of Orissa, eight rivers thundered simultaneously into spate, killing at least 150, inundating 3,500 sq. mi. of drought-seared cropland. The state’s 138 legislators dropped everything and rushed homeward to find out their families’ fate.

That was several weeks ago, but so massive was the damage that air force planes last week still dropped goods and medicines to people clinging to floating tree trunks and housetops, almost daily added other places to the disaster list. Orissa’s finance minister said: “We still do not know what s happening because we have not made contact with 25% of the villages.” After a flying survey of the subcontinental ruin, the International Red Cross’s Dr. François Daubenton estimated that the floods had wrecked 28,000 villages, damaged or destroyed the homes of 45 million people. There was no way to count the cost. “In my 35 years of public health experience in Europe, Africa and Asia,” said Dr. Daubenton, “I have never seen a disaster of the extent of that now being borne by India and Pakistan, or suffering so great.” Touring Orissa last week, Prime Minister Nehru thought to ginger up male survivors who had panicked when the rains came so calamitously. “Why do you behave like women,” he snapped. He remembered too late that there were women at the meeting, turned to them and apologized: “Excuse me, sisters.”