Calcutta, June 2
With the spectre of disease and famine stalking Bengal, Indian doctors and volunteers struggled vainly against overwhelming odds today to contain the cholera epidemic which has started to kill off refugees in overcrowded camps at the rate of at least 10 victims an hour.

The West Bengal director of health services, Dr H. Saha, told me that the situation is deteriorating fast. "It's completely out of control ", he said.

Disease is now starting to spread through the Nadia district like wildfire and by this evening the official death toll had mounted to 1,300. Health officials said that another 5,000 victims were in a critical condition and that all hospitals were already overcrowded.

According to unofficial reports as many as 2-000 refugees living outside government camps have died of the disease in four days.

Dr. Saha said that they were working against overwhelming odds." I have just received a report that another 100,000 refugees are crossing the border in the Cholera affected area. We are already attempting to cope with 500,000 of them. It is physically impossible to inoculate all in time. The water is polluted. The situation is extremely grave." he added.

Health officials also confirmed reports tonight that suspected cases of cholera had been detected in many of the 500 camps, which have been established to accommodate the estimated 4,500,000 refugees who have crossed into India since the beginning of April.

"But only half of the refugees are in the camps", a senior health officer told me. "The other 2,000,000 are roaming the countryside and we have no way of checking whether they are affected by cholera or the number of deaths occurring outside the camps,"

I visited a huge camp near Dum Dum airport tonight. Living conditions are indescribable. Most of the area has been half flooded by early monsoon rains, half of the refugees are without shelter, sanitation is non-existent, drinking water is polluted and the smell of night soil permeates the air everywhere.