NEW DELHI (AlertNet) - Pregnant women caught up in East India's worst floods in 30 years are having to give birth on rooftops, cut off by raging waters and unable to get to a hospital, The Hindu newspaper reported on Monday.
Tens of thousands of people in the impoverished state of Orissa have been stranded by the flooding, sparked by heavy monsoon rains, which have inundated over 3,000 villages in the coastal region.
"As many as 978 women are in advanced stage of pregnancy in flooded villages of Aul, Pattmundai, Rajkanika and Rajnagar blocks," said National Rural Health Mission district project manager Jagadish Prasad Sahu.
He said village elders had been told to inform authorities in case of an emergency, but that there were still not enough boats to rescue the women.
India usually has monsoon rains from June to September. They are vital for its agriculture but frequently cause landslides and flooding - displacing hundreds of thousands, devastating homes, destroying crops and triggering illnesses.
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