About 40 people were dead and 160 missing after an overcrowded passenger ferry with 350 people aboard split into two and sank in a river in north-east India in a storm.

A packed ferry boat has capsized in heavy winds and rain in remote north-eastern India, leaving at least 35 people dead and 165 others feared missing.

India successfully test-fired its Brahmos supersonic cruise missile it jointly developed with Russia, according to reports today.

An overflowing river spilled into an Indian city of half a million people today, and Indian and Nepalese helicopters rushed supplies to thousands of stranded people as the death toll across South Asia from monsoon flooding rose to 294.

The flooded Brahmaputra River has cut a vicious swath through India's remote northeast, killing hundreds of people, levelling homes and leaving millions homeless.

At least five people have been killed in tropical storms which battered parts of northern Bangladesh, flattening thousands of houses.