More than 300 killed in India floods

India: More than 300 people have lost their lives in eastern and central India while over six million others have been affected by floods that have submerged villages, washed away crops, destroyed roads and disrupted power supplies and phone lines.

Rivers, including the mighty Ganges and its tributaries have been forced to burst their banks due to heavy monsoon rains forcing hundreds of thousands of people into relief camps in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

Government officials in Bihar, described the situation as serious.
Zafar Rakib, a district magistrate of Katihar, one of 24 districts out of Bihar's 38 districts which have been hard hit by the deluge said;

"The flood waters have engulfed low-lying areas, homes and fields of crops."

"We have shifted people to higher ground and they are being provided with cooked rice, clean drinking water, polythene sheets," he added.

At least 43 people have died and over one million affected in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
Schools in the cities of Varanasi and Allahabad were closed as both the Ganges and Yamuna rivers were said to have crossed danger levels and flood waters has continued to rise.

Officials said the holy city of Varanasi, was also forced to suspended cremations along the banks of sacred Ganges river forcing families to cremate their relatives on the terrace roofs of nearby houses.

More than 33,000 people stranded in remote villages have been rescued by India's National Disaster Response Forces (NDRF).