The unofficial death toll rose to 65 in Bangladesh after five children drowned over the weekend, the mass-circulation Daily Ittefaq reported Monday. At least 14 of the country's 64 districts have been hit by floods spreading south from India towards the Bay of Bengal.

Prime Minister Khaleda Zia held emergency talks on the floods late Sunday and asked officials to step up monitoring of the situation, with their reports expected in a few days.

Aides told her there was adequate aid, including food, in stock to handle the floods, which submerge vast swathes of the deltaic country each year.

"The situation is under control and not serious," one official said despite the rising waters.

In northeastern India, floods have claimed nine lives since last month, with another 69 people reported dead from outbreaks of malaria and Japanese encephalitis caused by the muddy waters.

The worst-hit area is the Dhemaji district in the state of Assam, 460 kilometers (285 miles) east of the provincial capital Guwahati, where at least 100 more villages came under water late Sunday when floodwaters breached a 500-meter (550-yard) mud embankment.

With Dhemaji accessible only by boat for nearly a month, residents complained that relief operations were haphazard.

"People will start dying of hunger and disease unless essentials are air-dropped and medical teams rushed in to treat people suffering from malaria and other water-borne ailments," Dhemaji lawmaker Dilip Saikia told AFP by telephone.

"People in the area are passing days like cats and dogs eating and drinking whatever available," he said.

Local officials said relief supplies were merely 400 grams (14 ounces) of rice each day to each adult.

"The government should provide at least some salt and pulses, otherwise how can you expect people to eat just rice and nothing else?" Saikia asked.

"And the government had failed to take note of the fact that most of the people fled their homes without carrying utensils. Now where do they cook even if they got some rice as government relief?" he said.

Officials said floods would only grow worse in Assam, where at least 19 of 24 districts have been struck by floods and more than one million have been left homeless. The floods have forced an estimated 200,000 from their homes in the eastern Indian state of Bihar as well as affecting thousands more in other parts of northeastern India and Bangladesh, local authorities said.

"The situation continues to be critical with heavy rains lashing the region. We expect more devastation in the next couple of days," Assam's Revenue Minister Mithias Tudu told AFP.

Similar forecasts were made in Bangladesh, where the heaviest rains are still to come.

According to a Bangladeshi government meteorological forecast, rain will be at least 20 percent heavier in July than normal for the month, with two areas of low pressure over the Bay of Bengal flooding more of the country.

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

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, this time by the worst flood in a century, leaving millions homeless and causing massive damage.

TERRA.WIRE