Monsoon Floods Displace 20 Million

Almost 20 million people have been displaced or stranded and more than 250 killed by flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Hundreds of kilometers of land stretching from the Gangetic plains to the Bangladeshi delta are under water after rivers burst their banks. Melting snow and and heavy monsoon downpours in central India have deluged the region.

Most of the deaths were in central India. Parts of the Indian states of Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have seen almost three weeks of rain, swelling rivers and inundating fields. Another 46 people lost their lives in Bangladesh and flooding and landslides have caused 84 deaths in Nepal.

Farming, the lifeline of the mainly rural region, has been severely affected and aid agencies have warned that food stocks as well as drinking water supplies are perilously low. Millions of people have been cut off from the rest of the country. The floods have destroyed crops worth millions of rupees.

More than 14 million people in India and another 5 million in Bangladesh have been affected. Aid agencies say that health issues are of particular concern with reports of fever, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea and snake bites among refugees.

With the fertile plains south of the Himalayas now covered with water, the Indian army has been deployed to evacuate people from affected areas. In many remote areas hundreds of thousands have scrambled to find shelter on higher ground, setting up temporary dwelling.

In Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, more than 500 villages are below the water line. Another 100,000 displaced people are now living in relief camps in Assam. In Bangladesh at least a third of the country's 64 districts were partly submerged by the flooding.

The monsoon season in south Asia runs from June to September, bringing both hope and fear. While the monsoons are vital to the region's agriculture, they are invariably so intense that flooding kills. Last year more than 1,000 people died.

In New Delhi, India's meteorological department told Reuters news agency that unusual monsoon patterns this year have led to heavier than normal rains. "We've been getting constant rainfall in these areas for nearly 20 days," said BP Yadav, a spokesman for the department.

Some have blamed India for worsening the situation because it has not opened dams on its side of the border. Indian officials say that Nepal also has a responsibility to control water flow.