India, Nepal floods kill dozens- Hundreds of thousands see homes washed away in eastern India

Floods caused by incessant rains in India over the past week have displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the east and northeast, destroyed crops and damaged bridges, officials said on Friday.

In the eastern state of Bihar, 21 people have died while hundreds of thousands of villagers have seen their houses washed away while road and rail networks have been disrupted by heavy monsoon rains over the past three days.

"The floods have damaged 1,776 houses in 269 villages across the north of Bihar and we are sending relief to the marooned villagers," said Manoj Kumar Srivastava, a Bihar disaster management official.

Parts of Bihar's capital, Patna, are also waterlogged, resulting in many people remaining at home and some private schools being shut.

In the northeast, rivers — including the mighty Brahmaputra — have burst their banks and floodwaters have submerged 25,000 acres of rice fields and destroyed hundreds of houses.

"The situation is grim," said Bharat Chandra Narah, flood control minister for Assam state.

In the mountainous state of Arunachal Pradesh, roads were blocked by landslides, while fast-flowing rivers eroded river banks and damaged bridges.

Weather officials predicted more rains in the next 48 hours across Bihar and the northeastern states.

In Nepal, floods triggered left thousands of people homeless, destroyed crops and disrupted transport and electricity supplies across the country, officials and media reports said on Friday.

Around 2,500 houses have been washed away in the Himalayan nation's southern plains, forcing residents to flee to higher grounds after week-long heavy rains, local media said.

Officials said floods and landslides have killed about 40 people in Nepal since June when the annual monsoon rains began.

"The seasonal monsoon trough lies almost parallel to the foot of the Himalayas causing more than normal rainfall in Nepal," said Shiva Nepal, an official at the weather forecasting office.

He said rain would continue for another two to three days.

In the western district of Sallyan, heavy rains caused a landslide, which swept away a home killing five members of a family while they were asleep on Thursday, Kantipur television reported.