PATNA: Residents in eastern India complained on Wednesday about the smell of corpses floating in flood waters as the toll from widespread monsoon flooding in South Asia rose by 68 overnight.

Close to 1,800 people have died from drowning, house collapses, snakebite and waterborne diseases in the densely populated and largely impoverished region since July, as heavy monsoon rains caused numerous rivers to burst their banks.

Millions of people are living in miserable conditions