SAHARSA DISTRICT, India: Indian authorities rushed doctors and medical equipment to flood-devastated northern India on Monday to ward off outbreaks of disease among the hundreds of thousands of victims crowding relief camps, officials said. Nearly half of the 1.2 million people who were left homeless when the Kosi River burst its banks two weeks ago, spilling over north India's vast plains, had been rescued by Monday, and officials said they hope to reach the rest in the next three days. About 250,000 refugees were in government and relief agency camps, said Prataya Amrit, a top disaster management official in Bihar state, the scene of the flooding. Many of the rest have taken shelter with families or friends. Meanwhile, rescue efforts pressed ahead, led by more than 2,000 extra military personnel sent to the region. In the Madhepura district of the state, the army, using two boats strapped together to fight the current, plucked more than 200 people off the roof of a school where they had been trapped for 11 days. "God, who has given us so much sorrow, finally saved us," said Malti Devi, 55, as she was reunited with her son, who had camped out on the shore for over a week waiting for her. However, amid the chaos it seemed as if there was little coordination between the rescue efforts and relief. After being dropped on the shore, the villagers had to walk 12 miles (20 kilometers) to the nearest camp. With the numbers in the camps expected to nearly double in the coming days, there were fears the crowded and often unsanitary conditions could lead to outbreaks of diseases such as cholera. The United Nations warned that "the heat, combined with limited supplies of safe drinking water and poor hygiene conditions, poses a great risk of water and vector-borne diseases." In one camp set up at a school in Saharsa district