While the worst of the floods in India are in the northeastern states, police said they had pulled 20 bodies from the rubble of a landslide Tuesday in eastern West Bengal state's Darjeeling hill region.

"We fear that more bodies are buried under the debris, as eight people are missing after the landslides," Darjeeling district's police chief Sanjoy Chander told AFP.

He added that heavy rains had triggered fresh landslides in the area and troops were clearing highways blocked by mud and stone left by the landslides.

Three people, including a teenaged girl, had been washed away by floodwaters on Tuesday.

West Bengal Public Works Development Minister Amar Chowdhury said that more than 50,000 people were left homeless when floodwaters submerged 18 tea gardens and a number of villages near Jalpaiguri town at the base of the Darjeeling hills.

In flooded northeastern Assam state, another two people drowned overnight when their boats capsized in separate incidents while trying to escape floodwaters, police said.

These deaths bring to 20 the number of people killed in flooding in Assam and the adjoining states of Meghalaya and Tripura.

"Up to 1.5 million people in Assam have been hit by the floods spread over 19 of the state's 24 districts so far," Assam's Revenue Minister Mithias Tudu told AFP.

At least 10,000 people have also been displaced in the neighbouring state of Tripura.

An outbreak of malaria, Japanese encephalitis, and other water-borne diseases in flood-hit areas in Assam have claimed the lives of at least 75 people since the beginning of June.

Heavy monsoon rains have also triggered mudslides in various parts of Arunachal Pradesh state bordering China. Road links to the state capital Itanagar have been cut off for a week.

The floods have also taken a heavy toll on wildlife with at least a dozen endangered wild animals, including rhinos and elephants, killed while trying to escape the floods in Assam, officials said Wednesday.

However, farmers across India Wednesday welcomed news from the meteorological department that this year's monsoon rains were likely to be 98 percent of the seasonal average, allaying fears of another drought.

A severe drought last year hit the country's agriculture sector hard, slowing India's economic growth down to 4.3 percent from 5.7 percent the previous year.

In Nepal, two people were swept away by floodwaters in the east of the kingdom and are feared dead, officials said.

Heavy rains in the past few days have caused flooding and mudslides in parts of southeastern and eastern Nepal.

In Bangladesh, where waters have been spreading from the flooded north to the low-lying heart of the country, the situation had stabilized Wednesday, according to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre.

While no official death toll has been provided for Bangladesh as a whole, the number of reported dead in weather-related incidents is 67, with many killed in landslides in the southeastern hill tracts late last month.

TERRA.WIRE