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DHAKA - At least 216 people have died in monsoon flooding in South Asia in the last 10 days, officials have said, while more than 10 million remain homeless or marooned in their villages, many without access to health care.
The threat of water-borne diseases is rising, with many villages cut off for days. Some people have been bitten by snakes driven to the surface by the waters, others have been crushed under the rubble of their houses, and many have drowned.
More than 35 million people are affected in the crowded and largely impoverished region. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said the floods were causing havoc and chaos and could be the worst in living memory in some areas.
"The sheer size and scale of flooding and massive numbers of people affected poses an unprecedented challenge to the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian assistance," UNICEF said on Friday.
Rural medical infrastructure has collapsed in many areas. In India's impoverished eastern state of Bihar a number of pregnant women in flooded areas gave birth to stillborn babies.
"There is little one can do as nearly half of the 315 health centres in remote districts have been swamped," said Baidyanath Singh, a senior health official.
Residents said they were facing a shortage of medicines and food in Bihar, where officials announced late on Friday that around 10 million were affected, hundreds of thousands of them homeless or cut off.
Sixteen people died in the state of around 90 million on Friday.
"Shelter, access to fresh water, food, emergency medical supplies and basic household items are urgently required - especially given the loss of infrastructure including basic health units and hospitals," UNICEF said in a statement.
Across the subcontinent more than half of Bangladesh is flooded, and nearly 7 million of the 20 million affected there have been marooned or forced from their homes, officials said.
11 people died in flood-related incidents overnight, and the rising waters reached low-lying areas of the capital, Dhaka.
In Manikganj town, north of the capital, people knee-deep in water shifted household items into boats.
"The situation is getting worse every hour," said local journalist Biplob Chakravarty.
Authorities said more than 300,000 hectares (740,000 acres) of crops had been affected.
In India's north-eastern state of Assam nearly 3 million are displaced or marooned - more than 10 per cent of the oil-and-tea-producing state's population. Officials there warned of outbreaks of diarrhoea and malaria.
Thousands camped out on highways and river embankments and on patches of dry land, surrounded by huge expanses of muddy flood water. Military helicopters and boats tried to bring food, drinking water and medicines to them.
People in some relief camps complained of not getting food. Volunteers in boats brought supplies to some marooned villages that authorities had not reached for days.
In the east of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, hundreds of thousands were displaced or stranded. Since Thursday evening, fresh floods have inundated nearly 300 villages.
In western India, flights and trains were delayed by monsoon rains in the financial hub of Mumbai, where thousands waded knee-deep in water.
Near India's eastern city of Kolkata, a court-appointed panel said on Friday that state-run oil firms whose compounds were flooded had pumped out industrial waste and oil along with water, causing waterlogging on roads and in several neighbourhoods in Budge Budge town.
Every year, monsoon rains and floods kill hundreds in South Asia and cause widespread disruption, but the annual rainfall season is vital for agriculture and the regional economy.
- REUTERS
