1.
GVs Residents washing clothes in flooded streets (2 shots)
0.12

2.
GV EXTERIOR Partially flooded ghats (religious temples)
0.21

3.
SV Man in boat in street
0.26

4.
GV EXTERIOR Partially flooded buildings
0.31

5.
SV Man bathes in floodwaters
0.38

6.
GV PAN Flooded buildings
0.42

7.
GV River Ganges flowing quickly
0.47

8.
SV Trucks on flooded road
0.57

9.
GVs Trees and buildings partly covered with water (3 shots)
1.06

10.
SV Family row boat
1.14

11.
GVs Refugees make makeshift shelters on riverbank (7 shots)
1.49

12.
GVs Women wash and cook in refugee camps (3 shots)
2.05

13.
SCU Bearded elderly man
2.08

14.
GVs Flooded crops in fields (2 shots)
2.19




Initials JE/BB





Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: At least 400 people have died and hundreds of small villages have been flooded in northern India since the start of the month in heavy monsoon rains. Reuters reported that the situation in Northern Uttar Pradesh state was particularly grim, with nearly 700 villages under the water of the rising Ganges River. Over 200 people were killed by the floods in the northern state alone, and widespread damage and disruption were caused to housing and transport links. In Assam, where at least 35 people died, the level of the Brahmaputra river was reported to be receding slowly. At one point the state was isolated for six days, and air force helicopters were used to drop food parcels to marooned residents. The heavy rain also disrupted rescue operations in landslide-devastated areas of the Himalayan state of Sikkim, where 123 people died. In the Holy City of Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh, many of the town's ghats (temples) were badly flooded. Hundreds of residents had to abandon their homes as the Ganges rose to nearly two centimetres (one inch) above its danger level. Many homeless residents had to take makeshift shelter in home-made huts on the riverbank and alongside the main highways. So far the monsoon floods have marooned nearly one million people nationwide and caused widespread damage to crops.