Kindgo
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web page Fri Aug 2,10:28 AM ET
By FARID HOSSAIN, Associated Press Writer
DHAKA, Bangladesh - Surging floodwaters broke through more embankments in Bangladesh and eastern India on Friday, killing at least 23 people and bringing the death toll from monsoon floods in South Asia to more than 550.
In Bangladesh, where nearly 5 million people have been stranded or displaced by the month-long rains, residents helped soldiers and government engineers pile rocks and sandbags to repair broken levees and prevent swollen rivers from spreading.
Four children drowned Friday in swirling waters in the hardest-hit northern districts of Kurigram and Gainbandha, a relief official said on condition of anonymity, raising the number killed in Bangladesh to 123.
The highest death toll has been in Nepal, where torrential rains and mudslides killed nine people Thursday, raising the death count in the Himalayan kingdom to 269, Nepal's interior ministry said Friday.
Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes made an aerial survey of the flood-hit villages in the eastern state of Bihar and discussed relief and rescue operations. Army choppers dropped food packages and soldiers in motorboats ferried food and evacuated thousands of people from villages inundated by the overflowing Koshi River.
Twelve children died in the Araria district of Bihar on Thursday as they tried to cross a swollen river on a raft, district police chief Arvind Kumar told The Associated Press. Seven others died in Samastipur district, Bihar's Special Relief Commissioner S.S. Singh said Friday.
Araria and Samastipur are among 19 districts in Bihar's north where 127 people have died under collapsing houses or of snake bites or have been swept away by floodwaters since the onset of the monsoon rains in June.
On Friday, an International Red Cross team arrived in the northeastern state of Assam, where 30 people have died. Soom 2,000 villages have been inundated and receding floodwaters are now causing water borne diseases like diarrhea.
While incessant rains and resultant floods have displaced or trapped more than 15 million people in Bihar and Assam, large parts of India are facing the worst drought in 14 years. Hundreds of districts in northern and western India, where farmers have lost most of their summer crop, sown in June and July, have been declared drought-hit.
In Bangladesh, government relief workers used boats and waded through floodwaters to reach some of the flood victims. One-third of the delta nation has been in the grip of floods.
"Our relief efforts are far from the needs of the day," said a relief worker in Tangail district, 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of Dhaka.
In the northern part of the delta nation, Jamuna River continued to recede Friday, pushing floodwaters downstream and swamping parts of central and southern Bangladesh.
Dhaka, the capital city of 10 million people, is surrounded by the Buriganga and Turag rivers. Both rivers have swollen, flooding the city's low-lying areas.
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God bless,
Kindgo
Inside the will of God there is no failure. Outside the will of God there is no success.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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