Thousands Homeless as Asia Flood Misery Spreads

Asia's monsoon misery has spread to Nepal, leaving thousands of people homeless, while more rain is expected to bring further chaos to China's drowned southwest, where many have already lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.

Rescuers dropped relief supplies to hundreds of people in Indonesia's Sulawesi island on Friday after days of torrential rain triggered landslides and floods.

About 85 people have died and nearly 8,000 people displaced from their homes in central Sulawesi. A relief official said authorities had not been able to pull out many bodies because of a lack of heavy machinery and equipment.

In China, the toll is far higher, with more than 500 people killed across this country in floods this summer.

Meteorologists forecast more downpours for the Guangxi region and the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan where floods and related disasters have already taken a heavy toll.

"The possibility of landslides and mud and rock flows is high and preventive measures should be taken," the centre said on its Web site (www.nmc.gov.cn).

This year's monsoon has also caused widespread flooding in South Asia and Indochina, straining disaster relief agencies.

In mountainous Nepal, floods have 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.

FLOODWATERS SPREAD

In Bangladesh, monsoon floods continued to spread, inundating vast areas in 30 of the country's 64 administrative districts, officials said on Friday.

"Thousands of people have been marooned or displaced. We have opened flood shelters at several places and are bracing for the worst," said Ibrahim Khalil, an official in Sirajgan district, one of the worst-hit areas north of the capital Dhaka.

Across the border in India, incessant rains 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 and hundreds of thousands of villagers have seen their houses washed away. Road and rail networks have been disrupted by heavy monsoon rains over the past three days.

Rivers in the northeast -- including the Brahmaputra that also flows through Bangladesh -- have burst their banks. Floodwaters have submerged paddy fields and destroyed houses.

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

Weeks of rain in China's mountainous southwest, home to the upper reaches of the Yangtze river, have made floods peak in Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei, state media said.

Authorities in Hubei had mobilised tens of thousands of people to check embankments as the Han River, a main tributary that converges with Yangtze, was also swollen.

But as parts of China battle floods and landslides, others are suffering from a heatwave and drought.

Temperatures have reached above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 days in seven southern and southeastern provinces, home to about 200 million people, the National Meteorological Centre said on Friday.

The heat is set to compound the drought in the rice-growing provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian, where about 1 million residents faced shortages of drinking water.