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Relief supplies have been air-dropped over the worst-hit areas of India's Bihar
state, but some stricken residents have ended up fighting with each other in
desperate attempts to grab food parcels, officials said. Thirteen bodies surfaced in Bihar state as floodwaters started to recede after
creating havoc in 19 of 36 districts last week, Manoj Srivastava, the state
disaster management secretary said.
Water levels in three rivers, Ghagra, Rapti and Gandak, in Uttar Pradesh state
have started receding, said Mahindra Awasthi, a spokesman for the Central Water
Commission in Lucknow, the state capital. "If this trend continues it will give a big respite to the millions of marooned
people," Awasthi said.
The meteorological office forecast minimal rains in north and northeastern India
in the next 24 hours. Military helicopters dropped food for nearly 2 million marooned people and the
army helped civil authorities carry out rescue operations. They also brought aid
to hundreds of thousands of people who had escaped to high ground near national
highways and railway tracks in India's Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states last week.
Most villagers took their cows, buffaloes and goats to makeshift shelters.
As rains eased doctors and paramedics started supplying medicine to people to prevent diarrhea, skin allergies and other waterborne diseases, said
S.K. Gupta, an Indian army officer. Army doctors treated 235 people suffering from waterborne diseases in makeshift camps near Gorakhpur, a town 155 miles southeast of
Lucknow, said Gupta, who is commanding a unit involved in relief operations.
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