26 October 2009
Communities in southern India have been shattered by record-breaking flooding which has wrecked homes and livelihoods, according to a Tearfund partner.
The states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka face months of clearing up after the heaviest rains in more than a century deluged hundreds of thousands of people.
Tearfund partner Eficor is providing emergency relief supplies, such as food, water and clothes, to 10,000 families in the Kurnool and Krishna districts of Andhra Pradesh.
In Kurnool, 58 villages were completely submerged and another 137 were partially under water
Staff are encountering communities there that have been severely damaged. In the village of Sunkesula, they came across a grandmother appearing dazed and confused.
She told them that her house, which she shares with her 13-year-old granddaughter, had been badly damaged and all their possessions had been lost.
Living in fear
Nearby was a widow who had returned to the village after fleeing the floods to find her home had also been effectively destroyed.
In Sangala, Eficor teams counted that 350 families have been affected by the flooding, forcing them to live outside the village in makeshift tents comprising of tarpaulins and sarees.
A villager called Chinnaiah said people were living in fear as they do not have adequate shelter and could face eviction as they don’t own the land they are staying on.
Food supplies are also in jeopardy as many crops in Kurnool district were washed away and sand deposits now litter the fields. Stored bags of rice have been left unusable.
The response to the flooding in India is happening against a backdrop of limited international coverage of the disaster which has hampered fundraising and donations for relief efforts.