Spectre of hunger looms over flood-hit India
(AFP)

11 August 2007

MADHUBANI, India - Senior bureaucrat Nibha Thakur ran short of cash as she shopped for vegetables in India’s eastern Bihar state, where severe floods have pushed basic food prices beyond the reach of millions.

“Survival is now a major issue,” said Thakur, lugging a bagful of potatoes she had just purchased at four times their cost last month.

“We may just have to do with boiled rice in the coming days as everything else is getting out of the reach of even the middle class,” said the civil servant in hard-hit Madhubani district.

Here, 1.6 million flood victims are surviving on state food handouts, but many complain they are far from enough.

Nearly 14 million people have been affected by the worst floods in 30 years in Bihar — and at a time when crops were ripening in the fields.

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