1.
LV people carry earth in baskets plug breach in canal.
0.11

2.
SV men digging soil (2 shots).
0.26

3.
SV women deposit earth in breach
0.32

4.
LV and CU water pumps draining low lying areas into canal (3 shots).
1.15

5.
Lv and CU wrecked homes (2 shots).
1.44

6.
SV woman sitting in debris outside home.
1.46



Initials MV/1950



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Hundreds of men and women have been working around the clock to plug the breach in the Sone Canal which caused the recent disastrous flooding in the north-east Indian city of Patna.

The Bihar State government has also deployed hundreds of workers, Border Security Force men and Central Reserve Police to help shore the Canal breach on the west side of the city and keep a constant watch on the floodgates along the Ganga in the north.

The recent monsoon floods in the state of Bihar, of which Patna is the capita, have killed at least 117 people, destroyed 230,000 homes and damaged two million acres (80,000 hectares) of crops. And the Ganges River is reported to be rising again near Patna.

Fifty people died from cholera in Patna. The outbreak followed the floods when many stranded people were forced to drink the highly polluted floodwater - but there has been no epidemic thanks to fat work by the local Health Directorate.

People coming into Patna are given inoculations by teams with jet injectors posted at the railway stations and steamer terminals, and inoculation is compulsory.

If the canal can be shored up and the flood waters recede, the job of rebuilding can begin. 30,000 tons of cement have been ordered to help reconstruct patna, but it will be a long time before the homeless have a place of their own again.