At least one million people have lost their homes to floods in eastern India, but government relief is slow and inadequate, voluntary groups said on Wednesday.
The flooding, triggered by annual monsoon rains over the past week, has hit an area where 2.3 million people live and damaged thousands of acres of paddy in Orissa.
But days after floodwaters submerged hundreds of villages in 12 of Orissa's 30 districts, authorities have failed to reach around one million people who remain stranded without shelter, food and medicines, say charities.
"People are still desperately asking for dry food and drinking water and infants are almost starving due to non-supply of baby food," said Archarya Kalyan Anand of Sarvoday Rahat Abhiyan, a charity distributing food and medicine in Kendrapara district, 80 km east of the state capital Bhubaneswar.
The flooding, triggered by annual monsoon rains over the past week, has hit an area where 2.3 million people live and damaged thousands of acres of paddy in Orissa.
But days after floodwaters submerged hundreds of villages in 12 of Orissa's 30 districts, authorities have failed to reach around one million people who remain stranded without shelter, food and medicines, say charities.
"People are still desperately asking for dry food and drinking water and infants are almost starving due to non-supply of baby food," said Archarya Kalyan Anand of Sarvoday Rahat Abhiyan, a charity distributing food and medicine in Kendrapara district, 80 km east of the state capital Bhubaneswar.