South Asia's flood-hit areas threatened by disease

Millions of people made homeless in South Asia's worst floods in one and a half decades were threatened by disease yesterday as rising waters cut off access to food and drinking water.

And in impoverished Bangladesh, where monsoon floods have forced about seven million people to live in temporary shelters, the forecast was for more rain.

Floods caused by sweeping river waters after heavy rains have killed more than 550 people in South Asia in the past three weeks and made millions homeless in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Officials said the rains had also affected Bangladesh's key garment industry that earns $5 billion in exports each year.

Health officials in the country said about 65,000 people were suffering from diarrhoea after drinking floodwater and eating rotten food. They said 37 people had died of diarrhoea in the past week.

Floods have cut off large parts of Bangladesh, submerging rail tracks and roads and making it difficult for authorities to bring medicines and clean drinking water to those marooned in distant areas.

In India, the death toll from floods in the eastern state of Bihar, adjoining Bangladesh, reached 205 yesterday as soldiers continued to distribute food packets to millions of affected people.

Ram Vichar Rai, the state's minister for relief, told Reuters that nearly 20 million people had been affected by the worst floods in 16 years. Ironically, other parts of India are suffering from drought.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia visited northern Sirajganj, one of the worst-hit districts, yesterday to distribute relief to people living in some of the 1,800 temporary shelters set up across the densely populated country.

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre in Dhaka said major river levels were higher than in previous floods in 1988 and 1998. The situation would continue to worsen, the centre said. Road links between Dhaka and most flooded districts are cut off and road and rail links between the capital and Chittagong port are also threatened by rising floodwaters, officials said.