1.
GV PAN Water still in building (3 shots)
0.18

2.
SV PAN People queuing to receive wheat flour (2 shots)
0.37

3.
SV Official taking notes
0.42

4.
SV Boy receiving flour
0.53

5.
SV Banner over tent .. Medical Relief Centre
0.58

6.
SV PAN Doctors and medical officer at table with medicines
1.04

7.
SV Doctor checking patient with stethoscope
1.14

8.
SV Villagers receiving vaccination (2 shots)
1.30



Initials CL/2344



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: The north-east Indian city of Patna, the capital of Bihar, is slowly getting back to normal after disastrous floods that left the city cut off for nearly a week.

Mopping up operations are in full swing and trucks can now get into the city with food and medical supplies. The floods, the worst in a hundred and fifty years, left eighteen dead in Bihar and another fifty have since died from a cholera epidemic that's raging in Patna.

Teams of doctors are working round the clock inoculating people against cholera and by Friday (5 September) more than three hundred thousand had been injected with anti-cholera vaccine. The Bihar Government has also made it compulsory for everyone to be inoculated and anyone resisting could be liable to a jail sentence.

The Indian Air Force has suspended its week long airdrop of food into the city and food into the city and food and clothing is being distributed to people from trucks which can get into the city because floodwater have receded.

However, drinking water is still posing a problem and most families are only receiving one bottle a day from rescue teams. The water, which many have tried unsuccessfully to purify by boiling, has been the main source of the cholera epidemic.

Though most of the city is now flood-free some western parts of Patna are still under water and official expect it will be about a fortnight before the situation improves.