Seven more districts were hit by flood waters, which were rolling down from the country's north and northwestern areas into lowlying areas, officials said.

The mass-circulation Daily Ittefaq reported Sunday that five more people, four of them children, drowned Saturday in three flood-hit areas.

The unofficial death toll since monsoon rains started hammering deltaic Bangladesh in May now stands at 60, with most killed in landslides in the southeastern hill tracts last week.

Newspapers, including the mass-circulation Janakantha daily, said 14 of Bangladesh's 64 districts were flooded with tens of thousands of people either marooned or being forced to move to safer places.

Schools have been closed in some areas and some have been turned into shelters for people made homeless by the flooding, officials said.

Witnesses said areas around the capital Dhaka were also flooded as gushing waters pushed up the levels of the Shitalakhya, Balu and Buriganga rivers.

And experts warned that the situation could worsen when monsoon rains are expected to get even heavier later this month.

But officials in the disaster ministry's control room said the situation was normal and nothing serious.

"The situation upstream has been improving since late Saturday, but as the water flows down to the Bay of Bengal new areas are being flooded," a Flood Warning Centre (FWC) official told AFP.

He added that water levels at 12 out of 85 points across the country were flowing at what is considered the danger mark.

Bangladesh's four-month full monsoon starts this month when the average monthly rainfall varies from 1,194 to 3,454 millimetres (48 to 138 inches).

In 1988, three months of sustained flooding left several hundred people dead and caused millions of dollars in damage, prompting a global call to help Bangladesh develop a long-term flood-protection system.

But in 1998 Bangladesh was again ravaged by the worst flood in a century, leaving millions homeless and causing massive damage.

In neighbouring India, floods have also displaced nearly a million people and killed 13, mainly in the northeast, which neighbours Bangladesh.

TERRA.WIRE