800,000 displaced in flooding in southern Indian state

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, officials said Sunday, as rescuers searched for people stranded in the worst-affected areas.
The downpours that started August 8 have triggered floods and landslides and caused homes and bridges to collapse across Kerala, a picturesque state known for its quiet tropical backwaters and beautiful beaches. 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, said P.H. Kurian, a top disaster management official in Kerala. He said weather conditions had improved considerably and expected the nearly 10,000 people still stranded to be rescued by Monday.
An estimated 800,000 people have taken shelter in some 4,000 relief camps across Kerala, Kurian said. Weather officials have predicted more rains across the state through Monday morning. In several villages in the suburbs of Chengannur, one of the worst-affected areas, carcasses of dead cattle were seen floating in muddy waters as water began receding. However, vast rice fields continued to be marooned and many vehicles were submerged.
In some villages, floodwaters up to 3 meters (10 feet) high had entered homes. Rescuers in a motorboat reached a hamlet where they tried in vain to persuade an 80-year-old woman, Bhavani Yamma, to be taken to a government-run shelter from her partially submerged single-story house. "I will not come. This is my home and I will die here," said Yamma, who lives alone.
The team later rescued a 61-year-old kidney ailment patient, Raveendran, who needs dialysis twice a week. One of the rescuers, Rajagopal, a police constable who uses only one name, said initially "we didn't anticipate it would be such a big disaster." But he said that by Wednesday, "we realized it's really big." Officials have called it the worst flooding in Kerala in a century, with rainfall in some areas well over double that of a typical monsoon season.