DHAKA, Sept 21: Manmade floods devoured scores of villages in Bangladesh at the weekend, leaving at least 11 people dead and many more missing, officials said on Sunday.

More than 200,000 people were displaced from their homes as the swelling Ganges and Teesta rivers washed away soggy rice fields, destroyed mud and straw huts and disrupted road links in the northern regions of Rajshahi and Rangpur.

The national Flood Warning Centre in the capital Dhaka said the post-monsoon flooding was triggered by excess water released from the upstream river barrages across the border in India.

Bangladeshi officials blamed the sudden deluge on the onrush of water from the Farakka and Gozaldoba barrages in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal

The swirling waters also forced the Gorai and Mahananda rivers to run above the red mark, leaving another 50,000 people stranded in inundated hamlets in central Bangladesh.

The swollen rivers set off mudslips in the worst-affected Nawabganj and Pabna districts where hundreds had become shelterless as the rivers in spate gnawed away their banks.

“The situation is very tragic as the local people are victims of flooding for the third time this year,” said Deputy Minister for Relief Asadul Habib.

Seven people died due to flood-related causes in Rajshahi while four other deaths were reported from the Rangpur region.

About 20,000 homes and the staple diet rice on 10,000 hectares had been devastated by rising floods in the western border district of Kushtia, Habib said.—dpa