PATNA, India (AP) – Authorities recovered more than 100 decomposed bodies as overflowing rivers receded in eastern India. Floodwaters, disease and snakebites killed 58 more people in Bangladesh, officials said Monday, as the death toll from monsoon flooding across South Asia rose above 1,000 victims.

The decomposed bodies started surfacing in India’s eastern Bihar state, said Upendra Sharma, a deputy secretary in the state’s relief and rehabilitation department.

Meanwhile, one civilian was killed as an Indian air force helicopter dropping food and evacuating people crashed in Begusarai district, 30 miles south of Patna, the state capital, said Gautam Goswami, a relief officer.

Two other civilians on board received minor injures in the accident. The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

In India’s northeastern Assam state, rescuers Monday recovered seven more bodies after a boat capsized in floodwaters, police said. Ten bodies were pulled from the site on Sunday. The boat, ferrying flood victims to safety, was crammed with passengers when it overturned.

The new deaths in Bangladesh came as rivers around the capital, Dhaka, burst their banks, leaving 40 percent of the city of 10 million people under water.

The floods are the worst in this delta nation of 140 million people since 1998.

Government relief workers and volunteers are distributing food, medicines and clothes to people stranded in their homes or sheltering on mud embankments, raised highways, school buildings or mosques.

But many complained that not enough relief was getting through.

“There is no pure water here. The water in the street is dirty,” said local resident Amena Begum, who was living in a school. “In the past three days I’ve been here, I’ve got only a few packets of biscuits.”

Dhaka Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka toured some relief centers Monday and told The Associated Press, “the flood victims are suffering a lot. We are trying our best to mitigate their sufferings.”

Dhaka, one of the world’s most densely populated cities, has a history of floods. Three-quarters of the city was under water in 1988. Authorities then began building embankments around the capital, but work later stopped because of a lack of money.

The 58 new deaths occurred due to diarrhea, drowning and snakebites, the government said without providing further details. About 75,000 people have been stricken with diarrhea since the start of the floods in June, it said. Snakebites often cause deaths during floods because the animals are often forced into the open, where they attack people.

The new deaths brought to nearly 300 the number killed in Bangladesh. In Nepal, more than 100 have died. In Pakistan, there have been five monsoon deaths, while in India the death toll has reached some 700 victims. Across all of South Asia, the toll is 1,078.

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

Many deaths have been due to drowning, lightning, waterborne diseases and electrocution from downed power lines.

AP-ES-07-26-04 1047EDT

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