Authorities ramp up efforts to prevent diseases spreading in flood-struck South Asia

Health workers disinfected wells and distributed chlorine tablets to thousands of villagers rushing back to their homes as water levels receded sharply in flooded rivers in northern India, officials said Wednesday.

Many defied warnings to remain in relief camps for another day or two to ensure it was safe to return to their flood-hit homes, said L. B. Prasad, the Uttar Pradesh state director-general of health services.

More than two weeks of monsoon rains across much of northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal have flooded rivers and inundated plains, killing at least 415 people and stranding some 19 million more, officials said.

Villagers have been given chlorine tablets to purify drinking water and were advised to take precautions for the next few days, Prasad told The Associated Press in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

International aid groups have warned of an impending health crisis if help does not reach millions of people in South Asia stranded by heavy flooding amid forecasts of more rain in the devastated region.

With weather clearing up this week, aid workers, government officials and the military have rushed food, clean drinking water and medicines to flood-hit areas in a bid to ward off an epidemic of waterborne diseases.

Flood victims are facing an acute shortage of drinking water in Bihar, said R. K. Singh, who is coordinating relief work in the state. Authorities stopped air dropping water pouches after complaints that they broke upon landing, Singh said.

Water will be supplied in plastic bottles and other containers, along with packets of flour, salt, candles and matches, he said.

The sheer scale of the disaster has dwarfed relief efforts.

"Entire villages are days away from a health crisis if people are not reached in the coming days," Marzio Babille, UNICEF's health chief in India, said Tuesday.

"Many of the affected areas are home to poor communities who suffer from poor sanitation and hygiene year round," Babille said in a statement. Stagnant waters left by the floods are a lethal breeding ground for diarrhea and waterborne diseases at an epidemic level, he said.

Babille said people are also at risk from skin infections, malaria, leptospirosis and dengue fever. Children, who make up 40 percent of South Asia's population, are particularly susceptible.

In India, officials said the problem was exasperated by contaminated wells.

More than 1,000 people in Uttar Pradesh state are sick, mainly from cholera and gastroenteritis, officials said.

In Bangladesh, there were 1,400 reported cases of diarrhea this week, said Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Word Health Organization.

The World Food Program and UNICEF have been distributing emergency food supplies to thousands of people in Bangladesh and Nepal, said WFP spokesman Simon Pluess in Geneva.

India has not requested any aid, he said.

At least 251 have died in India since last week because of the monsoon floods. Another 164 people have died in Bangladesh, the Information Ministry said.

This included 25 bodies recovered in India's eastern Bihar state and 14 in northern Uttar Pradesh state since Tuesday, officials said.

Since the start of the monsoon in June, the government says more than 1,200 people have died in India alone, with scores of others killed in Bangladesh and neighboring Nepal, where floods have hit low-lying southern parts of the country.

___

Associated Press reporter Biswajeet Banerjee in Lucknow, India, Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.