“Thoda aur andhera ho jaye, tab jaate hain (Let’s wait for it to get darker, then we will go),” Soni told her 17-year-old daughter at a relief camp in Mayur Vihar on Thursday evening.
For the past 10 days, Soni, her two daughters, and her seven-months-pregnant sister-in-law, Muskan, have had no access to functional toilets. Their only option is to set out at 3-4 am to relieve themselves near the Yamuna riverbank or under a flyover.
Gesturing toward the traffic congestion near Mayur Vihar Metro station, Soni said, “Look at the number of vehicles passing by. There are so many people near the river too. How can we go now?”
As floodwaters from the Yamuna continue to inundate neighborhoods, the lack of toilets is just one of many hardships faced by women living in makeshift tents. Over 500 relief tents have been set up across 38 locations in six flood-hit districts, yet displaced families complain of scarce drinking water, inadequate food, and overcrowded conditions.
Also read | Permission mandatory for installation of Ganesha idols at public places, says Mandya DC
“I had to walk 30 minutes to Shastri Park just to use a toilet. There’s no drinking water here either,” said Chanda (30), sitting by the roadside in Old Usmanpur, where cattle belonging to displaced families are tied amid dung-strewn streets.
District administration officials claim that portable mobile toilets are being deployed at the camps, but many residents say the wait has been too long.
On Thursday evening, Delhi Fire Services teams were still rescuing people from partially submerged houses. Among them was Ganesh Kumar, a 50-year-old ragpicker, who was evacuated along with two roommates. “We didn’t think the water would rise this much. We tried moving our belongings to higher platforms, but by nightfall, the water had surrounded us. We stayed on the roof until a boat came,” he recounted.
For more such updates, click here.
