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South Asia Floods Strand Millions

Surging river waters overturned boats, drowning two dozen passengers Friday, and swept away children in South Asia's worst floods in four years, which so far have killed 367 people.

About 7 million people have been left homeless or stranded by rain, floods and mudslides in Bangladesh, Nepal and India in the past month.

The most deaths have occurred in Nepal, where incessant rain has pushed mud and rock down Himalayan mountainsides, smashing 3,700 houses and burying villages. At least 200 people have died, 115 have been injured and 30 are missing, the kingdom's Home Ministry said Friday.

Another 79 people were killed in the Indian state of Bihar. Among the dead were the victims of two boats that overturned Friday on surging rivers — 20 who died on the Kosi River, and four others on the Gopalganj River, said an official in Bihar's flood control room.

Six have died in India's northeastern Assam province, where floods submerged about 1,000 villages.

The state's Flood Control Minister, Nurjamal Sarkar said the floods caused widespread damage to infrastructure and sparked fears of a food shortage as supplies struggle to get through.

"The water levels of all rivers are rising alarmingly. There is no way out, rains have to stop to improve the situation," the minister said.

A third of the impoverished delta nation of Bangladesh has been flooded, leaving more than 3 million people stranded or homeless and 82 dead.

Most of Bangladesh's 250 rivers rose Friday from unrelenting rain, and worse is to come in the next few days, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said.

Most of the landslides in Nepal have occurred in remote mountain villages, where small dirt roads have been washed away or blocked by debris, blocking rescuers and relief supplies.

"There are hundreds of people who have lost their family members, their homes and their farms. These people desperately need help and the government has not been able to provide any assistance," said Birod Khatiwada, a former parliament member in the worst-hit Makwanpur district, 100 miles north of the capital, Katmandu.

He said only one shipment of relief materials had arrived by helicopter since the slides began early this week.

In Assam, a national park that is home to the world's largest habitat of one-horned rhinoceroses was engulfed by flood waters, forcing the endangered animals to move across a busy highway in search of higher ground.

"Since Tuesday, I have seen elephant herds in hundreds and rhinos migrating by crossing the highway to escape the floods," Park Director N.K. Vasu said on Thursday. At least 10 animals, including a sambar deer and a large Indian civet, were hit by vehicles during the past few days, he said.

Deadly floods are an annual occurrence in South Asia, especially in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by rivers that pour down from the Himalayas, through India, and into the Bay of Bengal.

The flood situation has been particularly bad this year with erratic monsoon rains pouring over eastern India and adjoining countries while the rest of India has been hit by its worst drought in a decade.

This year's inundation is the worst to hit the low-lying delta nation of 130 million people in four years. But more deadly floods are on record. In 1988, more than 3,000 people died; and in 1998, about 1,000 died during the monsoon season, which lasts from June to September.

On Thursday, three young children drowned in swirling flood waters in northern Kurigram district, and three men died of diarrhea, caused by drinking polluted water, in neighboring Rangpur. Almost half of the deaths in Bangladesh have been due to diarrhea.

Also Thursday, a new scourge arose as snakes, flushed out by rising rivers, killed two women in northwestern Rajbari district.

Relief workers waded through flood waters or used boats to bring dried food, drinking water and medicine to the victims, said a government relief official in Sirajganj, a hard-hit area 65 miles northwest of Dhaka, Bangaldesh's capital.

"We could provide relief to only a small number of flood victims," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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