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Millions forced to flee and 1,100 die after heavier than usual monsoon hits south Asia

This article is more than 16 years old
· Food and water perilously low, aid agencies warn
· Crops ruined as rivers burst their banks

Monsoon rains whipped the Indian subcontinent yesterday, flooding a wide swath south of the Himalayas and bringing the death toll in recent weeks to more than 1,100, with 19 million people displaced.

Hundreds of miles stretching from the Gangetic plains to the Bangladeshi delta are under water after rivers burst their banks. Most deaths were in central India.

Parts of the northern Indian states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have had almost three weeks of rain, swelling rivers, inundating fields and ruining crops. Across the country, 125 people have died in the last few days. In the financial capital, Mumbai, water rose to knee level in the streets. Train services and flights were cancelled.

In recent days 60 people have lost their lives in Bangladesh and flooding and landslides have caused 84 deaths in Nepal. Farming, the lifeline of the mainly rural region, has been severely affected and relief workers have warned that food stocks and drinking water supplies are perilously low.

More than 14 million people in India and 5 million in Bangladesh have been affected. Aid agencies say that health issues are of particular concern with reports of fever, acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and snake bites.

The Indian army was evacuating people from some of the worst-hit areas, and in many remote regions hundreds of thousands have scrambled on to higher ground, setting up temporary dwellings.

In Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, more than 500 villages are under water, while in Assam, 100,000 displaced people are living in relief camps. In Bangladesh at least a third of the country's 64 districts have been partly submerged by the flooding.

Rahmat Sheikh, a farmer, and his family were among the 2,000 villagers who fled their village in Sirajganj district, Bangladesh. "The floods have taken away all I had," Mr Sheikh, 40, told the Associated Press. "Rice paddies in the field, two cows and my house, all are gone. I don't know how we will now survive."

Aid agencies were gearing up for a huge rescue operation. Unicef said that the "sheer size and scale of flooding and massive numbers of people affected poses an unprecedented challenge to the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian assistance by governments".

The torrential rains began last month and run to September. The monsoon is vital to the region's rural economy, but hundreds of people lose their lives every year in landslides and by drowning.

That danger is again being made clear on the fertile plains of India, which provide food for hundreds of millions of people.

In New Delhi, India's meteorological department told Reuters that the unusual monsoon pattern this year had led to heavier than normal rains. "We've been getting constant rainfall in these areas for nearly 20 days," said BP Yadav, a spokesman.

Some blame India for worsening the situation by releasing water built up in its river system, although politicians in India say that countries such as Nepal have a responsibility to regulate water flow.

Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the independent South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, said that water levels in dams in India were too high with no room to capture rainfall. He said that embankments burst after a few days' heavy rain, suggesting poor maintenance.

"There's no effective water catchment management in place. You need systems in place like a proper drainage network to flush this water away, especially in cities. But nowhere in the region has bothered.

"Now climate change models predict heavier rainfall events happening more frequently. Has there been a change in attitude? No."

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