6m stranded in Indian floods

MASSIVE flooding and mudslides in north-east India have claimed eight more lives, officials said yesterday, taking the death toll to 62.

Weeks of heavy rain in India’s Assam state caused one of Asia’s largest rivers to overflow, with some six million people thought to have been marooned in India and neighbouring Bangladesh.

Assam’s disaster management agency said 32 of the state’s 35 districts were under water as the swollen Brahmaputra river broke its banks, displacing more than three million people.

The Brahmaputra flows from Tibet through India and into Bangladesh on a

nearly 500-mile journey through Assam. Flooding from swollen rivers has spilled over to Bangladesh, and lightning strikes in the country have also left at least nine dead since Friday.