The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Chandpur Bhangaha

As men, women and children stream off boats at this launching spot to rescue flood victims in northern India, the road to town has turned into a vast camp where thousands wretchedly squat.

Apart from basic food supplies, there is little evidence of government organisation on this partially submerged road in Bihar state, and so many of the latest arrivals are all but living outdoors. Chania Malla, who was nursing a 12-day-old baby she gave birth to on a school rooftop, hasn't seen a doctor since she got here on a boat from her village Wednesday night. "There isn't anything here," said her husband Jogindu, as the pair sat under the carved statues of Hindu deities of the crumbling temple where they had taken shelter with hundreds of others.

"We are only getting puffed rice."

The Mallas are among 800,000 people evacuated to higher ground since the rain-swollen Kosi river breached its defence walls in Nepal, just north of the border with India's Bihar state, and swung east flooding villages and farms.

Some 300,000 people are now in relief camps and many of the other evacuees are staying with family in other towns or even other states.

At least 200,000 more people still need to be rescued, according to estimates from state officials. By the temple, there were dozens of children on the road and many parents say their babies have fevers, coughs and diarrhoea.

"My grandchild has not eaten anything for 10 days," said Maya Mandal, as she held the still boy in her arms. "His stomach's been upset since drinking the flood water."

But there is no sign of any official, doctor or medicine. The nearest town with a hospital is about 50 kilometres (30 miles) away and the only vehicles passing are trucks packed with rescue equipment and relief supplies.

"The trucks are not taking us," said Mithilesh Yadav, 30, who was also rescued from his village Wednesday with his wife and five children. "Anyway, the schools, the camps, everything is full." Rescued villagers are handed biscuits and bags of food as they get off the rescue boats runs by the army, navy and a new disaster response force set up after the 2004 tsunami. Then they have to fend for themselves.

"We will live right here on the road," said Sanjay Yadav, who came off a boat with his wife Beena Thursday after 18 days stuck in his village. Many here have no shelter-just a small stack of belongings that they can huddle around on the road. At Banmankhi, a makeshift camp further down the road, scores of shelters made with clothes draped over sticks have mushroomed next to the hundreds already here a few days ago. The locals who are organising food aid here estimated there were 5,000 people at this makeshift camp. Now they say the number is easily double that.

In some of the other flooded areas, neat rows of canvas tents are being set up for the flood victims, but none of that is visible on this road.

"Private people are helping us, but the government is not helping us," said Yadav, the father of five. "We have put up these huts ourselves. We have to live somehow."