Athar Parvaiz
The Third Pole
September 26, 2014
With large areas still submerged, people in Kashmir urgently need medicines, clean water, food and shelter to help them get back on their feet after the devastating floods.
Three weeks on, almost half of Srinigar city is still submerged and the need for basic supplies and shelter is becoming desperate
Three weeks after the devastating September 7 floods that inundated large parts of India’s Kashmir valley and most of its capital Srinagar, the need to scale up short term relief and plan for long term rehabilitation of an entire populace has acquired an urgent edge.
More than 40% of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, is still under water and the cries for clean water, food, medicines and sanitation measures are getting louder — and more desperate.
Draining submerged areas and arranging shelter for those who lost their homes in the deluge – the worst in Kashmir’s recorded history – are the other most immediate needs, say relief workers, officials and residents.
Many areas in Srinagar are still under three to five feet of water and people are demanding their neigbourhoods are drained. “Living in such conditions is quite impossible as we have to frequently come out of our homes for various needs,” said Mohammad Farooq, who lives in Bemina, a residential locality with thousands of households.
Water and food scarcity
Water supplies have been hit and demands for clean water are getting louder with water tanks still unable to reach all areas. “A few days back, when we got to a house with some relief material in Bemina, the people living there had not drunk a single drop of water for many days,” Basharat Khan, a volunteer who has been distributing relief in the flooded localities, told thethirdpole.net. Marooned for days inside their homes, the families told him that they could manage without food, but not without water.
According to state Public Health Engineering (PHE) minister Sham Lal, 70% of water supply schemes have been restored, but complaints of the non-availability of drinking water from various areas in the city contradict this claim.
In a tragic absurdity, international NGO Oxfam said it had sent a consignment of 50 community water filters, which could provide safe drinking water for over 25,000 people, but the trucks carrying the equipment were stuck at the entry point to the state in Lakhanpore because a mandatory sales tax clearance certificate was missing. “Even our request for help to the state’s excise commissioner could not work,” said Bhabesh Lahakar, Oxfam’s logistics officer in India.
With food warehouses submerged and the valley cut off from the rest of India for about 10 days, there is scarcity of food grains in the region.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah has announced free rations for six months for people in Srinagar.
However, meagre supplies, slow delivery and bureaucratic wrangles ensured that this is yet to be implemented. Some people have questioned the chief minister’s sincerity and alleged that he was making “hollow announcements” to give the impression that his government was out there to serve the flood victims.
Homeless people have pitched tents along the roadside
“I came expecting to get rations at the relief camp but was asked to wait and come next week,” Wazir Mohammad from Batamaloo told thethirdpole.net.
Some flood victims said they had been asked to produce official approval letters and various documents despite the government announcing that every family in Srinagar would get free rations without any such conditions being placed.
The relief distributors at the camps are facing their own challenges. “We don’t want to disappoint people, but we are helpless. We are not getting enough supplies to meet the demand,” said an official at a relief camp near the city centre Lal Chowk.
Reyaz Ahmad of Tangpora said he was ready to buy rations against money from state-owned stores but there were no supplies. “If there are supplies in private stores they are being sold at prices way high higher than the normal because of the scarcity,” he complained. Vegetables are also in short supply and selling at very high prices.
Medicines and sanitation
Health experts say that a medical emergency is looming if stocks of essential drugs are not replenished. “While an epidemic appears unlikely because of the prevailing climatic conditions, we could face an emergency as there are apprehensions of medicine shortage,” said a doctor.
Though small consignments of life-saving drugs are coming in from outside Kashmir, health experts say supplies are likely to fall short as most big pharmaceutical stores in Srinagar have suffered heavy damages. The chief minister has appealed for doses of the measles vaccine, but experts say he should also ask for other medicines to avert shortages.
The removal of rubbish is yet another challenge with a shortage of manpower to execute the massive cleanup operation. Authorities have asked for reinforcements from other states. Until then, the smell of decay hangs over the city, forcing people to cover their faces. The streets are yet to be sprayed with disinfectants and the threat of disease intensifies.
“We have been repeatedly requesting the government to get the garbage removed from our houses and streets.
The smell is unbearable,” said a citizen who had come as part of a group to a newspaper office to register his protest. Relief efforts by unaffected communities are being well appreciated
Relief efforts by unaffected communities are being well appreciated
Housing
With the harsh Himalayan winter just around the corner, the need for proper shelter is urgent. Thousands of people are living in tents but they will soon need to move out and require help to rebuild their homes.
“It will be difficult to put up in tents from the first week of October as the night temperatures have already started dipping sharply,” said Hameeda Nayeem, chairperson of the Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS).
“Everybody knows about Kashmir’s winters. The government, which has miserably failed so far, should waste no more time and come forward to help the homeless,” she added.
Those who are forced to stay in tents have no resources and little idea of how to begin the task of reconstructing their homes and their lives.
“Our family has lost everything, our home and whatever was lying there. I have no resources to think of building even a makeshift toilet, forget about the house,” said Mohammad Sultan of Narbal, about 15 kilometres from the city centre where more than a dozen houses were washed away by flood.
With government agencies still to complete the survey of damaged houses, there are no exact figures as to how many families have lost their homes. But it is estimated that thousands of families in Srinagar and the south Kashmir and Jammu region have been rendered homeless.
Arigantu, for instance, a village of 450 houses in the southern district of Kulgam, was completely washed away as was the farmland surrounding the village. “It is a miracle that we are alive. Otherwise you can see some water is still flowing amid the ruins of our houses,” said Ghulam Qadir.
No one died as all the villagers managed to escape to safer places after the flood warning.
But the question of what next looms large.
Zaina doesn’t know what tomorrow holds for her family. “Not only did we lose our home, but also our half acre of farmland and our small orchard,” Zaina told thirdpole.net.
“My husband used to work hard in the farmland to feed the family. Now it is not possible anymore.”
