South Asian flood death toll hits 297 By BISWAJEET BANERJEE, Associated Press Writer

South Asian flood death toll hits 297 By BISWAJEET BANERJEE, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago



LUCKNOW, India - Floodwaters receded in parts of monsoon-soaked South Asia on Monday but the death toll continued to rise, officials said. Tens of millions remain displaced and homeless, and authorities fear waterborne disease could spread.

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At least 297 people have died in the storms in the past week in India and Bangladesh, authorities said. Indian officials say more than 1,200 people have died in their country alone since monsoon season began in June. Scores of others have been killed in Bangladesh and neighboring Nepal, where floods have hit low-lying southern parts of the country.

The South Asian monsoon season runs until 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.

Some 19 million people have been driven from their homes in India and Bangladesh in recent days. At least 2 million people have found themselves marooned and unable to reach safe ground, though relief supplies have been airlifted to many.

Floodwaters in several north Indian rivers fell Monday.

"Water levels in three rivers, Ghagra, Rapti and Gandak, have started receding. Water levels in other rivers have also either started receding or are constant," said Mahindra Awasthi, a spokesman for the Central Water Commission in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state. "If this trend continues it will give a big respite to the millions of marooned people."

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

In the past few days, helicopters dropped food 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.

At least 39 deaths were reported in Bangladesh and 29 in India over the weekend, raising Bangladesh's overall death toll to 120 and India's to 177 in the past week, 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 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.

Major rivers also have started receding in worst-hit eastern and central Bangladesh with monsoon rains weakening, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said Sunday in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital.

Floodwaters have battered 38 out of 64 districts in Bangladesh, a delta nation of more than 150 million people.

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Associated Press writers Parveen Ahmed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Wasbir Hussain in Gauhati and photographer Rajesh Singh in Uttar Pradesh, India, contributed to this report.