Hundreds of people were thronging medical camps in
India's Jammu and Kashmir state following its worst floods in decades
that have killed more than 200 people, local media reported Saturday, according to dpa.
At medical camps set up in Srinagar just hours earlier, hundreds of
people were seeking medical help for symptoms including nausea, acute
diarrhoea, abdominal cramps, skin allergies and infected wounds, the
Hindustan Times daily reported.
Now that the water is receding, medics say there is a serious threat
of a mass break out of waterborne diseases due to stagnant water and
a shortage of clean drinking water.
'This is just the beginning, it will get worse when the water recedes
and leaves behind contaminated ... water, causing diarrhoea,
jaundice, cholera and typhoid,' doctor Mohammad Yahya Khan told the
newspaper.
'Our doctors are working hard in the camps,' Federal Health Minister
Harsh Vardhan told NDTV. 'As the floodwaters start receding, we are
bound to have waterborne diseases. We are thoroughly prepared to
handle diseases and treat people.'
Meanwhile, authorities were still struggling to rescue and evacuate
people from flooded areas, and to cope with the infrastructure damage
wrought by floods and landslides brought on by heavy monsoon rains
since September 3.
The IANS news agency reported that 14 children had died at Srinagar's
main children's hospital as flooding disrupted power supplies and
disabled ventilators.
Communication and key road links were still cut off days after the
flooding, despite claims by authorities that these were being
restored.