Bangladeshi Capital Swamped as S. Asian Monsoon Toll Rises to 879

Receding flood waters revealed 139 bodies, and at least 10 people drowned when a boat ferrying flood victims capsized in eastern India on Sunday. In neighboring Bangladesh, workers frantically stacked sandbags to protect the capital from rising waters, and 25 more deaths were reported.

The new deaths pushed the toll from this year’s South Asian monsoons to 879. A total of 545 have died in India, 227 in Bangladesh, 102 in Nepal and five in Pakistan, officials said.

Last year, 1,500 people died across South Asia during the June-to-October monsoon season.

In India, rescue workers found the new bodies in the last two days as waters receded in hard-hit Bihar state, flood relief official Upendra Sharma said. Floods triggered by the monsoon rains have wreaked havoc in the state for the last month, killing 351 people and affecting more than 20 million others, Sharma told reporters here in the state capital.

In the northeastern state of Assam on Sunday, a boat full of flood-hit villagers capsized, killing at least 10, police said.

Rivers around Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, burst their banks, leaving 40% of the city of 10 million people underwater. Parts of the central business district and two upscale residential areas were submerged.

Workers and volunteers stacked sandbags in an effort to stop water gushing through cracks in two main flood-protection embankments outside the capital.

Nearly two-thirds of Bangladesh -- a delta nation of 141 million people -- has been flooded since last month’s start of the monsoon season. The floods -- the worst there since 1998 -- have affected about 20 million people in 45 of the country’s 64 districts, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said.

The Relief Ministry didn’t specify the causes of the latest deaths. Many previous deaths have been by drowning, lightning, waterborne diseases or electrocution from snapped wires.

Unusually high tides caused by the normal monthly peak coupled with rising rivers fed by the rains were likely to worsen the flooding in 23 central and northeastern districts over the next three days, the flood forecasting center said.

Hundreds of people from flooded parts of Dhaka sheltered in schools or offices. Some families pitched plastic and bamboo tents on sidewalks along busy streets.

Two major highways and railroads linking the capital to the rest of the country were partially submerged.

Many factories in the Dhaka region producing textiles -- Bangladesh’s main export -- were closed as water swept into the plants and workers’ homes.

Waterborne diseases spread through the country because of shortages of clean water and fresh food.

Authorities have sent 3,659 medical teams to the worst-hit districts, the Department of Health said.