Many families are also struggling to cope amid food shortages.
"We are constantly hungry. I do not have enough food to feed my children," said Shifa Begam from Jithkar, a village near the Harirampur-district in Bangladesh. With tears in her eyes, she received from the ACT members a large food parcel containing rice, cooking oil, lentils and medicines. ACT members were the only humanitarian support in the village, where they are running a food distribution operation.
According to ACT, the coalition's operation across the Asian continent will reach 270,000 with food and clean water in the immediate response phase, and housing reconstruction and future risk reduction in the later stages.
In addition to the immediate assistance and rehabilitation work, a key aspect of the planned flood response by ACT members is to build upon the current coping mechanisms of communities and to reduce their future risks.
Director of Lutheran World Service India, Neville Pradhan, stressed the importance of risk reduction in the later stages of recovery.
"We leave people at the edge again if we do not begin to address the root causes of the disaster and do disaster risk reduction. If we invest in the longer term measures we make people and communities less vulnerable," he said.
Agrawal, who is also the moderator of the ACT International Executive Committee, appealed to the global church body to unite in its response to the floods.
"The situation is pretty alarming. This is a time when the global church must come together and stand with the poor, socially excluded and most vulnerable."
Christian aid agencies worldwide - including World Vision, Christian Aid, Tearfund, the Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief (EFICOR), the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Canadian Food for the Hunger International - and their partners in various Indian states and regions have been collectively working full-fledged in the devastated areas.
Beyond Bangladesh and India, ACT partners are at work in China, Nepal and Pakistan distributing essential food and non-food items.
