June 25, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 09, 1428

NEW DELHI, June 24: Aid workers backed by military helicopters battled on Sunday to provide food for 200,000 people displaced by monsoon floods in southern India.

In the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, reeling after two days of heavy rains, officials revised down the death toll to 35, but said 24,000 houses had collapsed and 200,000 people were now homeless. Officials had earlier put the death toll in the state at 45.

“Soldiers and naval helicopters have taken up rescue operations in Kurnool and Guntur districts ... where people are stranded on rooftops and up trees,” said Preeti Sudan, the state's disaster management commissioner.

She said half a million food packets and a million water sachets were being handed out to people in 300 relief centres in the state where rains have since eased.

RAINS SPREAD: In Mumbai heavy monsoon rains flooded homes and streets where a century-old British-built drainage system failed to cope with the stormwater.

At least one person was killed when a wall collapsed. People waded through waste deep water in low-lying neighbourhoods.

Media reports said about 50 people had died in the rains in the western state of Maharashtra.—Reuters