NEW DELHI-DHAKA, July 20: The current spell of monsoon rains and floods claimed at least 416 lives in India and Bangladesh as swollen rivers continued to submerge fresh areas, reports said Sunday.

While 236 people were reported killed in India, there were 180 deaths in Bangladesh.

Authorities warned that the flood situation in the worst-hit northeastern Indian state of Assam could take a turn for the worse as the state’s lifeline Brahmaputra and other rivers were rising.

State Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the situation was so bad that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee should declare the state’s flood situation as a national problem

Gogoi sought a relief of five billion rupees (over 106 million dollars) in addition to relief supplies from the federal government to tide over the situation.

Floods in Assam have so far claimed 83 lives besides affecting 5.2 million people in 22 out of the state’s 24 districts. Some 446 relief camps have been set up in the state so far.

Meanwhile a Bangladesh report said fresh inundations displaced another half a million people in the central districts around the capital Dhaka after the major river Ganges rose above the danger mark, increasing the woes of thousands of families stranded in flooded hamlets.

The Flood Warning Centre said floods in Manikganj and Madaripur districts would worsen as the local rivers were overflowing rapidly after torrential monsoon rains battered rice farms, highway bridges and railroads. Hundreds of rescue workers and local volunteers braced Sunday to stop a dam from collapsing in Dhaka’s suburban neighbourhoods.

A key highway linking Dhaka and the northern region was also threatened at the weekend by gushing waters in the Ganges tributaries, local officials said.—dpa