Bangladeshi River Spills Over to Villages

A swollen river burst its banks and swamped dozens of villages in Bangladesh on Saturday, while in eastern India officials said seven people drowned when a boat capsized in swirling flood waters.

Forecasters warned of more rain in a monsoon season that has caused 911 deaths since June in Nepal, India and Bangladesh. An additional 25 million people have been displaced or stranded.

In China, the death toll from landslides caused by torrential rains in the southern province of Yunnan has risen to 52, official media reported Saturday. Forty-one more people are missing. Altogether, more than 900 people have died in China this year because of seasonal storms.

Floods have killed 330 people in India, the latest when a boat sank Friday in a rising river in Bihar state. The accident happened in 90 miles northwest of Patna, the state capital, said Ram Vichar Rai, Bihar’s relief and rehabilitation minister.

The state’s water department said that intermittent rains Friday and Saturday had kept most rivers dangerously high and that more rain was expected.

As most of India struggles with the worst drought in years, heavy rains and flooding have destroyed about 2.5 million acres of crops and disrupted the lives of more than 15 million people in Bihar, which is along the eastern Himalayan foothills. At least 276 people have died in the state.

In northern Bangladesh, the Jamuna River overflowed and spilled into dozens of villages Saturday, relief officials said. At least 2,000 people had to flee or were stranded by high water, in an area about 65 miles northwest of the capital, Dhaka. Thousands of people in the area already were homeless because of floods.