PATNA, July 4: At least two people were swept away by floods in eastern India’s

Bihar state while more than 8,500 people lost their

homes in mudslides and flooding in West Bengal, officials said on Thursday.

The flood control room in Bihar said a man on a motorcycle was swept away on a Bihar highway while a farmer from Jhitkihiya village died in the Adhwara river, which is flowing above the danger mark.

Jagdanand Singh, Bihar’s water resource minister, said that the Baghmati and Gandak rivers, which have their sources in neighbouring Nepal, were creating havoc in eastern India.

“We will urge Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to take up the issue of controlling the Baghmati and Gandak rivers with Nepal,” said Singh.

“The prime minister must ask Nepal to build dams on these two rivers to tame them in Nepalese territory. Without any checks on the Nepalese side, the Baghmati and Gandak rivers create havoc when they literally gush into Bihar.”

The water resource minister said 1,608 people and 6,089 cattle had died in Bihar floods over the past five years.

“We have to find a permanent solution to end this misery,” said Singh.

The state meteorological observatory in Bihar’s capital Patna forecast heavy rains in the next 48 hours in the state and West Bengal.

West Bengal Flood Relief Minister Hafiz Alam Sairani told reporters that at least 8,500 people in West Bengal had lost their homes in fress flooding in Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri districts.

“The flood victims have been shifted to 163 relief centres which have opened up across the state. The Teesta, Ghis, Lis, Kurti and Neora rivers are flowing close to the danger mark so we have sounded an alert,” said the minister.

Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains in India have already killed hundreds of people and marooned up to 30,000. The worst-affected states have been Assam, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The annual monsoon rains first hit the southern coast of Kerala in June and spread across the rest of the country over the next three months.

In Bangladesh, three people were killed on Wednesday in a landslide triggered by torrential rains, as experts warned of major floods to come later this month.—AFP