Anger at the slow pace of relief efforts in storm-ravaged northeast India boiled over on Friday as destitute and hungry locals attacked officials and looted an aid depot, a minister said.
A violent thunderstorm and tornado ravaged hundreds of thousands of mud and tin-roofed homes and killed more than 130 people on Tuesday night when it tore across several northeastern states of India and neighbouring Bangladesh.
Efforts to send food aid and shelter have been frustrated by uprooted trees blocking highways and downed power lines in the worst-hit Indian states of West Bengal and Bihar, some of the poorest parts of the country.
Riot police were deployed in Karandighi and Hematabad villages in northern West Bengal on Friday where protests turned violent, a senior office said.
"Thousands of villagers staged angry protests in front of government offices demanding more relief materials and assaulted officials when they came to open the offices," West Bengal relief minister Mortaza Hossain said.
"Even some protesters scaled the boundary wall of a civic body office in Karandighi, one of the worst affected villages, broke open the godown (storage area) and looted tarpaulin sheets and other relief materials."
Jabbar Sheikh, a resident of Karandighi, told AFP by telephone: "Villagers are angry as the relief material is very inadequate and in places no relief has reached as yet."
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