800,000 displaced in flooding in southern Indian state

CHENGANNUR, India — Some 800,000 people have been displaced and over 350 have died in the worst flooding in a century in southern India’s Kerala state, as authorities rush to bring drinking water to the most affected areas, officials say.

At least two trains carrying about 1.5 million liters (400,000 gallons) of water moved to the flooded areas from the neighboring states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Indian railway official Milind Deouskar says, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

After one of the trains arrived, P.H. Kurian, a top disaster management official in Kerala, said authorities had largely restored the state’s water supply systems. “What we need right now is bottled water, which is easy to transport to remote and isolated places, where some people are still stranded,” Kurian said.

Officials are calling it the worst flooding in Kerala in a century, with rainfall in some areas well over double that of a typical monsoon season.

Thousands of rescuers were continuing efforts to reach out to stranded people and get relief supplies to isolated areas by hundreds of boats and nearly two dozen helicopters, Kurian said. He said weather conditions had improved considerably and expected the nearly 10,000 people still stranded to be rescued by Monday.

— AP