BMS World Mission Boosts Food Supplies in Asia Flood Regions

BMS World Mission has issued a starting grant of $50,000 to bolster food supplies amid the severe floods across Nepal, Bangladesh and northern India.

The grant will go towards existing food supply programmes being run in Bangladesh by BMS partners.

Around 10,100 families will each receive a food package containing enough food to sustain a family of six for ten days. Special dry food packages are being delivered to flood victims without cooking facilities.

BMS Director for Mission David Kerrigan is in Bangladesh where he has witnessed firsthand the enormous devastation caused by the high waters.

"Flying into Bangladesh was like flying over the English Channel, it's a country under water," he said. "The devastation here is enormous. Our partners on the ground are doing an excellent job but we would ask for your fervent prayers for people here who are suffering immensely."

BMS said that further grants would be issued once the flood waters have subsided and the relief effort moves into the reconstruction stage.

BMS partners are monitoring the situation in Nepal and northern India where further BMS grants will be issued to support their response strategies once finalised.

A number of Christian aid agencies have scrambled to the flood affected regions to respond to the urgent need for food and clean water, as well as other essential household supplies.

Christian Aid's response includes the distribution of emergency food rations, water and cooking utensils in the Indian state of Bihar, where it said that the constant rainfall was "unprecedented".

"The monsoon season usually starts in late August. But this year we have already had 15 days of sustained rainfall," said Anand Kumar, from the Christian Aid office in India.

World Vision in India is coordinating its efforts with the Inter Agency Group, a coalition of government and aid agencies, and is already providing instant meals across India.

In Bangladesh, World Vision is working in partnership with the government to bring food and non-food items such as candles, matches and soap to flood-stricken regions in the northern Netrokona district, around 159 km north of Dhaka.

Christian Aid agency Tearfund has teamed up with the Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA) to distribute relief kits to families in East Champaran district in the state of Bihar where up to one million people have been forced to camp in the open as a result of the flood and an estimated 70,000 homes were submerged or washed away in the flood.