Food riots have broken out in India's West Bengal state where the worst flooding in recent years has claimed around 250 lives and spread into neighboring Bangladesh, officials said Monday.
In the worst incident, police were forced to fire into the air Sunday as desperate villagers tried to break into a relief truck and steal packages of molasses and rice in Naida district north of Calcutta.
"Police had to fire in the air to disperse violent flood victims in a couple of places," said police inspector general Prasun Mukherjee.
West Bengal Deputy Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya described the incidents as "unfortunate" and urged security personnel to exercise "restraint."
Reports of looting came in from all of the state's eight affected districts, where 10 million people have been hit by the flooding in the past week.
While the official death toll has been put at 208, separate figures put out by the affected districts combine to make an overall toll nearer 250, with several hundred others missing.
The floodwaters were receding slightly Monday, but millions remained cut off, with air drops from military helicopters their only source of food and medication.
Military officials said they had managed to rescue 250,000 people at the weekend who had been marooned on rooftops and rafts without food for four days in the worst-hit district of Murshidabad.
State government officials said that while relief supplies were plentiful, a lack of manpower had caused delays in distribution, which in turn had fuelled resentment among affected villagers.
Police said flood victims had looted relief materials and harassed relief workers in Burdwan district.
"Unless the provision of relief supplies can be stepped up, the situation is likely to remain volatile for several days," said Burdwan development officer Sumit Haldar
Bhattacharya told reporters that 20 trucks carrying relief materials had gone missing in Burdwan and Murshidabad. While some may have been stranded by floodwaters, Bhattacharya said others had probably fallen victim to looters.
Reports in local newspapers quoted one Burdwan flood victim as saying the looted food would be equally distributed among the local community.
"It is natural that people would try to snatch food if they have had to go hungry for days," said West Bengal Congress party leader Paresh Bal, who blamed the state's ruling Communist administration for failing to respond effectively to the situation.
In neighboring Bangladesh, troops were called out to evacuate thousands of marooned people in five western frontier districts hit at the weekend by floodwaters spilling over from West Bengal.
In the worst hit district of Chuadanga, some 50 villages were submerged and four people were killed after three embankments collapsed.
The official toll in the Bangladesh floods stands at eight dead.
In Meherpur district, paramilitary troops were deployed after 50,000 villagers were left homeless in the floods that hit 30 villages along the frontier -- CALCUTTA, India (AFP)
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