Thousands without food, water in Kerala; toll hits 370

THRISSUR: Rescuers searched submerged villages in southwest India on Sunday in a desperate hunt for survivors after floods killed at least 370 people and drove more than 700,000 from their homes.

Entire villages in Kerala have been swept away in the state's worst floods for a century. Rescuers fear the death toll will rise as they reach areas almost entirely under water.

Thousands remain trapped -- often without food or water -- in towns and villages cut off by the floods, and heavy rain forecast in coming days threatens to compound the disaster.

Nearly 725,000 people have taken shelter in relief camps, state government spokesman Subhash T.V. said on Sunday.

Bedraggled survivors massing at evacuation centres have described desperate scenes after days without food or water.

"They were the scariest hours of our life," 20-year-old Inderjeet Kumar said at a church doubling as a relief shelter in the hard-hit Thrissur district. "There was no power, no food and no water -- even though it was all around us."

The overall death toll in the state since the start of the monsoon on May 29 had reached 370, the spokesman said. Forty-six of them were found dead in just the last 24 hours.

This picture shows volunteers at work in an aid distribution centre inside a stadium in Kochi.-- Agencies

Thousands of army, navy and air force personnel have fanned out across Kerala. The army said Sunday that 250 people had been evacuated from Pathanamthitta district, many of them sick after days in the pounding monsoon rain.

Food, medicine and water has been dropped from helicopters to isolated areas. A train from Pune in Maharashtra state headed south on Saturday for Kerala laden with more than one million litres of drinking water.

The state's Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan vowed Sunday "to save even the last person stranded". Fishermen have sailed inland from Kerala's coast to join the search, as volunteers erected soup kitchens and appeals went out worldwide for donations.

Many panic-stricken flood victims have resorted to appeals on social media, saying they cannot get through to rescue services.

In Mala, desperate villagers had to improvise as the floodwaters rose, using kitchen pots as rafts to reach their stricken neighbours.

"They used these huge cooking pots to rescue around 100 people in the first wave of flash floods, as no one was prepared (for a rescue)," one local rescuer told AFP.

There have been moments of cheer amid the tragedy. In the hilly district of Idukki, rescuers told the Press Trust of India of working through the night to save a newborn boy and his mother from the rising waters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted a brief air inspection tour of the state Saturday and announced an immediate grant of $75 million.