Floods in eastern India have claimed 123 lives and left millions homeless, with officials warning yesterday that disease and severe food shortages could push up the death toll.
In the worst-hit eastern state of Assam, relief workers said half of the 80 people to have died in the past week were victims of water-borne disease.
The flooding, triggered by heavy rains that caused the Brahmaputra river and its tributaries to burst their banks, has also killed 26 people in the eastern state of Bihar and 10 in neighbouring West Bengal.
Another seven people were reported drowned in fresh floods in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.
In western Assam, where the floods have left an estimated 2.5 million people homeless, tens of thousands of stranded villagers have been without food or medical supplies for more than five days.
"We are surviving on coconut water and a few grains of puffed rice which we managed to carry with us after flood waters engulfed our village on Thursday," said Mr Phani Das.
Mr Das and his family of six were among thousands sheltering in makeshift tarpaulin camps constructed on raised highways in Nalbari district, 120 km west of Assam's capital, Guwahati.
"We are virtually starving with no relief coming in from the government," said Ms Monimala Das, a mother of three children.
"Whatever food we managed to bring with us has been exhausted and we don't have anything to eat now."
"Our big concern, if the weather doesn't improve in the next few days, is the threat of water-borne diseases," said Mr Patrick Fuller, spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"According to our people on the ground in Assam, many of these people living in makeshift shelters have little or no access to clean drinking water," Mr Fuller said in New Delhi.
Boats are now the only mode of transport in the flood-hit areas and there are scores of villages that aid workers and troops aiding the relief effort have been unable to reach.
The Assam government has sent medical teams to some of the 3,500 affected villages, but officials admit the scale of the flooding is beyond their limited resources.
"The people are suffering a lot and we understand that. We are trying our best to provide them all with help but it is physically impossible to reach all the affected villages," the state's flood control minister, Mr Promode Gogoi, said.
Flood control officials said the flood waters had been receding since Sunday night, although the waters of the Brahmaputra were still flowing at least one to two metres above the danger level at many places.
"The situation is still critical, but if there are no rains for another 24 hours then the water level will come down," one official said.