Monsoon washes away villages and claims more lives

A RIVER burst its banks and surged through 25 villages while residents slept in northern Bangladesh yesterday, killing 13 - mostly children - as homes, crops and trees were washed away.

The death toll in the South Asia region (including India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan) from annual monsoon flooding, fed by melting snow and torrential rains, reached 339.

Some 10,000 villagers were washed out of their flimsy homes as the Jamuna River surged through the mud embankment in Bogra district while people slept, relief officials said.

“The flood waters came roaring into our house and we had little time to flee,” Parveen Aktar, a woman in Dhunat village said.

The breach left at least 100 people missing and damaged about 3,000 tin, mud and straw houses in Bogra district, 100 miles north of the national capital Dhaka.

At least eight of those killed were drowned in two other northern districts, Sirajganj and Jamalpur.

Monsoon floods have engulfed 25 of Bangladesh’s 64 districts, leaving nearly five million people stranded and 68 dead since late last month, officials said.

Rivers surrounding the capital swelled further today, flooding some low-lying areas of the city.

Millions across South Asia have been left stranded - enduring hunger and disease - as the floodwaters have washed away homes, roads, and telecommunications links.

There have been 197 reported deaths in India, 69 in Nepal and five in Pakistan.