Kumarkhand

Our camp site for the night, these two gentlemen were awake almost all night. Food was provided courtesy Amarnath Ji. You know, despite all the problems most of the people out there are carrying on life as normal. They were never tired, never hinted any frustration when we had goofed up the loading of materials at Baluadhar & as a consiquence had to go thrice cross the river.
Its a different life altogether, they survive on each others strengths, share each other sorrow and work as a team. The children get so happy with so little and they genuinely seemed happy.
I hope and pray that God help them go through this winter, and that their miseries end soon.

Amarnath Ji had tough time with ladies who woudnt budge and kept crowding on him.

This old lady walked from ward 4, about 4-5 km away, to come and collect blanket and cap
for her family members who were apparently not well. She is so frail.. and yet .. amazing people these. Beautiful people. Warm people. Friendly people.

Kumarkhand

These children were waiting for us very eagerly as someone had told them that we are bringing biscuits. We reached late & we were not carrying biscuits as blankets had taken all space.
Felt real bad.
We gave them soft colorful woolen caps, slacks and sweaters. To make sure that some children do not comeback and Que up again, we marked a cross with red marker on their palm.

All the children got woolen caps; infants and really small children were given woolen top,slacks,socks & cap,

The condition in these villages are very bad. What you see below is a hand pump, with thick crust of decomposed vegetation and algae over 6-8 inch water.
The villages are saturated with stale water, almost all hand pumps are around 30-40 feet deep.
Many of these hand pumps would be contaminated.
But they are the only source of water, as wells are totally polluted and all lakes or pokhars are in bad shape.

Although this small woven bamboo bridge looks frail, they are pretty strong, these 'chachri' are used in many places where the river is still flowing through.

Kumarkhand

These are the scenes of villages where people have come back to from relief camps. Broken houses,decay,insects,dirty water..all things bad. Nothing left in their dwelling,
The government has given them one quintal food grains(rice & wheat) and INR 2250 for families which have a student (INR 1200 for education)

Distributing woolen caps to children

Ranigunj, Kumarkhand

The concrete slab of the roof dangles down, held by some reinforcement bars. This house
probably gave refuge to hundreds of people before the high current of Kosi eroded its foundation and hollowed up the underlay.





A lot of small breaches on the highway has been temporarily repaired now as most of the roads are visible and are above water level. But still, road connectivity in this area is only about 50 %.

I hope authorities do something about the way these boats ply.These boats have been a lifeline all throughout these 3 months. Overcrowding and ignoring govt.guidelines for safety has led to a lot of accidents.

Bihar Flood relief contribution from Mindteck

Dear all,

We are pleased to inform that Mindteck (India) www.mindteck.com along with their employees has come forward to help the people affected by Bihar flood.Mindteck India's employees have contributed Rs. 41,101 (forty one thousand one hundred one rupees) and same ammount has been contributed by the management of Mindteck India. Total ammount conributed by them is Rs. 82,202 (Eighty two thousand two hundred two ruppes). We have received two cheques on the name of Prayass. Prayaas is our NGO partner through which we are continuing the flood relief activity in Bihar along with Chandan at Patna. This is a great gesture from employees and management of Mindteck India. We thank them on behalf of people of Bihar. This is really a great help towards the rehabilation of people affected by Kosi Flood.

We keep updating the flood relief activity at our blog

http://www.biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com/

 

PS: Amar Jamadhiar, one of our group moderator works for Mindteck and he was very instrumental in collecting this fund.

I have attached a photo which was sent by Mindteck's HR while handing over cheque to me.

 

Thanks

Sarvesh