Flooding swamps Bangladesh, India, China

Flooding swamps Bangladesh, India, China

Associated Press
Dhaka/Beijing

Rain-swollen rivers inundated thousands of homes in northern and
central Bangladesh, as the death toll in South Asia's raging
monsoon flooding climbed to at least 237.

More than 3 million people have been affected in India,
Bangladesh and Nepal since the monsoon rains hit in mid-June.

Monsoon floods have submerged a third of Bangladesh - a low-
lying delta nation -- in the past two weeks, killing at least 113
people.

Seven people died Friday when their small wooden boat capsized
in swirling flood waters in northern Rangpur district, 250
kilometers north of the Bangladesh capital, a local administrator
said on condition of anonymity.

Also on Friday, a six-year-old child and a 55-year-old woman
were swept away by gushing flood waters in Jamalpur district, 80
kilometers north of Dhaka, local police said.

Floodwaters have damaged or washed away thousands of flimsy
huts and sections of mud levees along river banks. Surging waters
have also drowned livestock and swamped rice fields, and
submerged roads and rail tracks, disrupting communications in the
parts of northern and central Bangladesh.

In neighboring India, the weather office predicted more moderate to
heavy rainfall in the deluged northeastern Assam state, where a
tributary of the rain-swollen Brahmaputra river -- one of the
largest in Asia -- changed course Friday, washing away homes in
Madarbari village, police said.

More than 2.2 million people have been affected in the state,
with 20 of its 24 districts under water, said Assam's Flood
Control Minister Nurjamal Sarkar. Homes and roads have been
submerged, cattle drowned, and people driven from their villages
to higher ground.

In eastern Chine, at least 55,700 people were being evacuated
in eastern China on Saturday as authorities rushed to cope with
some of the worst flooding in more than a decade.

On its noon newscast, China Central Television showed hundreds
of volunteers - some waist-deep in water - feverishly piling
sandbags to shore up embankments along Hongze Lake in the eastern
province of Jiangsu.

Residents around the lake were being moved to safety as
officials prepared to divert flood waters, said the head of the
Xuyi County propaganda office who would only give his surname,
Zhang.
" By 6 p.m. Sunday, all the women, children and elderly will be
evacuated," Zhang said. "Young people will be asked to help
strengthen dikes."

In the hard-hit province of Anhui, which borders Jiangsu,
officials have said that 16 people have been killed in this
season's floods and more than a million people have been stranded
by rising waters.

On Saturday, an official from the Anhui Provincial Anti-flood
Headquarters said water levels in the Huai River were still
increasing in some parts "but there was no big, dangerous
situation".