Asia Flood Death Toll Hits 347

Water levels in several Indian and Bangladesh rivers fell Monday as heavy monsoon rains eased, but the death toll across South Asia from recent floods surged to 347 amid fears of an outbreak of diarrhea and other waterborne diseases, officials said.

Relief supplies have been air-dropped over the worst-hit areas of India's Bihar state, but some stricken residents have ended up fighting with each other in desperate attempts to grab food parcels, officials said.

Thirteen bodies surfaced in Bihar state as floodwaters started to recede after wreaking havoc in 19 of 36 districts last week, Manoj Srivastava, the state disaster management secretary said.

There has been no significant rainfall in the region for three days.

In addition, a teenager drowned Sunday after falling into floodwaters from the rooftop of his marooned home as he tried to catch a food packet dropped from an air force helicopter, said Upendera Sharma, the district magistrate.

Those deaths raised India's overall toll in the past week to 191.

The death toll from floods rose to 156 in Bangladesh, with 36 more deaths reported nationwide Monday, the Information Ministry said.

On Monday, an Indian government expert said the country was experiencing normal monsoon flooding and that the rainfall was not the result of global warming.

"It was well anticipated, well expected and well predicted. And in monsoon season when strong systems form, the rainfall of the order of 12-16 inches is a very normal phenomenon," B. P. Yadav, director of government-run Northern Hemisphere Analysis Center, told The Associated Press in New Delhi.

Floods have affected more than 8 million people in 39 out of 64 districts in Bangladesh, a populous and oppressively poor delta nation of more than 150 million people.

In a late night television address Sunday, the country's military-backed interim leader, Fakhruddin Ahmed, appealed to all Bangladeshis to join army and government efforts to aid the flood-affected people.

"Any natural disaster like floods brings an opportunity for the nation to stand united," Ahmed said.

With river waters receding, the flood victims living in makeshift camps in India's Uttar Pradesh province said the state administration should provide them money or rebuild their devastated homes.
Kedar Nisar on Monday complained that he had received only 22 pounds of rice from the government in the past week. The 62-year-old man makes a living by rowing a boat, taking people to villages across the river.

"I need money to rebuild my home," he said as he prepared to return to his village in Uttar Pradesh state.

Water levels in three rivers, Ghagra, Rapti and Gandak, in Uttar Pradesh state have started receding, said Mahindra Awasthi, a spokesman for the Central Water Commission in Lucknow, the state capital.

The meteorological office forecast minimal rains in north and northeastern India in the next 24 hours.

Military helicopters dropped food for nearly 2 million marooned people and the army helped civil authorities carry out rescue operations. They also brought aid to hundreds of thousands of people who had escaped to high ground near national highways and railway tracks in India's Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states last week. Most villagers took their cows, buffaloes and goats to makeshift shelters.

Since the start of the monsoon in June, the government says more than 1,200 people have died in India alone, with scores of others killed in Bangladesh and neighboring Nepal, where floods have hit low-lying southern parts of the country.

The South Asian monsoon season runs from June to September as the rains work their way across the subcontinent, a deluge that spreads floods and landslides across the region and kills many people every year.

So far this year, some 14 million people in India and 5 million in Bangladesh have been displaced by flooding, according to government figures.

As rains eased doctors and paramedics started supplying medicine to people to prevent diarrhea, skin allergies and other waterborne diseases, said S. K. Gupta, an Indian army officer.

Army doctors treated 235 people suffering from waterborne diseases in makeshift camps near Gorakhpur, a town 155 miles southeast of Uttar Pradesh's state capital, Lucknow, said Gupta, who is commanding a unit involved in relief operations.

"Our effort is to prevent the outbreak of an epidemic," he told The Associated Press.