NEAR 300 KILLED IN INDIA FLOODS

FLOODS DEVASTATE SOUTHERN INDIA‎

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) - The number of dead in devastating floods triggered by torrential rains in India has risen to at least 280, and about a million people have fled their homes, officials said Monday. At least 200 people have died in the southern state of Karnataka, its disaster-management secretary H.V. Parshwanath told CNN. More than 450,000 people there have been housed in 1,330 relief camps as authorities completed rescue operations in most of the flooded zones in the state, he said. In neighboring Andhra Pradesh, authorities put the death toll at 51.

Some 531,000 people have been evacuated to safety, with more half of them now sheltering in relief camps, said a commissioner. Air force planes and helicopters have also been dropping food packets in the submerged regions. The military has been able to rescue 1,336 people so far, it added. Flood waters were now receding in two of the five worst hit districts of Andhra Pradesh, disaster official Kumar said. But floodwaters from a local river might submerge the remaining three, he warned.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Everyone who is conditioned by material existence - whether he be a man or beast or demigod or bird - must suffer from ādhyātmika (bodily or mental) pains, ādhibhautika pains (those offered by living creatures), and ādhidaivika pains (those due to supernatural disturbances). His happiness is nothing but a hard struggle to get free from the miseries of conditional life. But there is only one way he can be rescued, and that is by accepting the shelter of the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Srila A.C. BV Swami Prabhupada:

"The Srimad Bhagavatam - Purport in Canto 3 - Chapter 5 - Verse 40"