Floods -- Arunachal points finger at China

Floods -- Arunachal points finger at China
KOTA NEELIMA

NEW DELHI, JULY 4: The floods came out of nowhere at night and overwhelmed three districts in Arunachal Pradesh which were enjoying bright sunny days. Till June 27, twenty-six people had died and the toll is expected to rise with about 2,000 people missing. About 15 crucial bridges have been swept away and the villages are totally cut off from the rest of the state.

Senior ministers of the Arunachal government, who have rushed to Delhi to ask for relief, are pointing an accusing finger at China. Siang river, called Sangyo in China where it originates, is know to be placid. It flows through Upper, Lower and East Siang, the three districts which have been inundated. "We have never seen the river flow so dangerously in our lifetime," says Arunachal's Minister for Home Kameng Dolo.

"There is no reason for the floods on the Indian side as Arunachal has not yet received any rain and the weather has been characteristically dry for the past so many months," he says.

"In the circumstances, we are left with no option but to believe that the cause of the flood is in China. It could be a dam which breached on the Chinese side or even some construction activity near the border like laying of roads," feels Dolo.

"We do not know the exact reason but we are having to pay dearly for the disaster," he says. "We want the Centre to take up the matter with China and ask them what exactly went wrong. Without the Centre's intervention, we are very helpless in Arunachal," he adds, listing the demands he had made before Home Minister L K Advani whom he met on Monday.

"We do not have enough money to provide relief on such a large scale and so unexpectedly," says Dolo. "Our coffers are in a bad shape, especially since a ban was imposed on cutting trees in the State because of which we lose about Rs 52 crore every year."

About 2,500 households have been affected and thousands of farmers are crowding the relief camps. The Central Government has released Rs 2.20 crore from the Calamity Relief Fund and Rs 1 crore from the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. However, the State Government estimates the damage to be over Rs 100 crore.

Last week Minister of State for Agriculture Nitesh Kumar went on an aerial survey of the area. Meanwhile, Arunachal Chief Minister Mukut Mithi was in the Capital to meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for seeking assistance.

Says Joint Secretary, Agriculture, Anil Sinha, "The situation is very serious and all possible help is being considered. The only way of taking relief to the villages is through air for which Indian Air Force choppers have been pressed into service." Sinha had accompanied Nitish Kumar on the survey of the flood-hit areas.

"We have tried to capture images through a remote sensing satellite of the path of the river. But for the past few days, we could not get clear pictures because of a thick cloud cover over the area. That is why we have not yet been able to say conclusively what the reasons for the flooding are," he added.

A number of minor rivers and tributaries from China and Tibet join to form the mighty Brahmaputra in India, the world's widest river, before it empties into the Bay of Bengal. The districts which have been flooded by the Siang river are a short distance away from India's border with China.