CALCUTTA,
India --Torrential rains and floods in eastern India have killed
at least 210 people in the last six days and have left nearly
15 million stranded, officials said Saturday.
Jyoti Basu,
chief minister of West Bengal state, called the situation ``quite
grave,'' and said efforts would now focus on rescuing those stranded
by the floods.
Local officials
said at least 210 people had died. The government could confirm
only 148 deaths in West Bengal because it was still verifying
reports from other districts.
Most of deaths
occurred when the victims were swept away in the swirling flood
waters. Others died when their mud and thatch homes collapsed,
officials said.
Helicopters
dropped food packets and pouches of drinking water in the worst
affected areas. Soldiers were using boats to ferry people who
had been left stranded on rooftops.
The floods
swept away roads and railway tracks in many places, cutting off
the flooded areas from the rest of the state and further hampering
rescue work. Hundreds of trucks carrying food and supplies to
the northeastern region were trapped en route.
Food shortages
were reported from different districts and people displaced by
the floods were clamoring for plastic sheets to build temporary
shelters.
In the Berhampore
district, police opened fire to disperse mobs that were looting
relief material, the United News of India news agency reported.
No one was injured.
The flood
situation was further aggravated when the government Friday ordered
the release of water from two dams following a sharp rise in the
water level in the reservoirs.
In some parts
of Murshidabad district, 720 miles southeast of New Delhi, swirling
flood waters were flowing about 15 feet high, washing away thousands
of mud huts and shelters.
The flood
situation was expected to worsen as weather forecasters predicted
heavy rainfall over the next 24 hours in parts of the state.
In the neighboring
state of Bihar, where some areas have been flooded, swollen rivers
swept away a half mile stretch of railway track in the east.
In Bangladesh,
which neighbors India in the east, rains washed out mud embankments,
swamped 50 villages and marooned up to 250,000 people in the north,
relief officials said.
Three children
and two women drowned in swirling flood waters Thursday and Friday
in hardest-hit Rajshahi district, 145 miles northwest of Dhaka,
Bangladesh's capital, Yasin Ali, a relief official said.
Nearly 10,000
people were left homeless after their mud and straw huts either
collapsed or were washed away by flood waters, Ali said.
The rain-swollen
Padma and the Mahananda rivers burst their banks this week and
washed out parts of flood protection embankments in Rajshahi and
neighboring Chapainawabganj districts.
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