Nepal's home ministry said 49 people had been killed in the last month.

"We have information that at least 24 have died from floods and landslides since mid-June. Twenty-five people have been killed by lightning in the last 72 hours," home ministry spokesman Gopendra Bahadur Pandey told AFP in Kathmandu.

Hundreds of people have lost their homes in the monsoon, primarily in the low-lying and mid-mountain ranges in the east and center of the kingdom, he said, with workers trying to clear key inter-city roads that have been blocked by landslides.

Nepal is hit hard each year by floods, as monsoon rains combine with the seasonal downpour from the Himalayas. The floodwaters wash down into eastern India and Bangladesh, which are inundated each summer.

At least four people in India were killed by lightning and another four drowned in heavy rains lashing the eastern state of Bihar, officials said.

District authorities confirmed four deaths in the village of Terasi Tola in Munger district on Wednesday and announced a payment of 10,000 rupeesdollars) to the families of each victim.

A Bihar family of four drowned when they were swept away by a river at Narayanpur village in Madhubani district, police said.

Bihar lawmaker Ram Kumar Yadav said the flood situation was worsening, with major rivers threatening to burst their banks and flood villages.

In the worst-hit northeastern state of Assam, a 68-year-old man drowned in Dhemaji district when his boat capsized, officials said Thursday.

With more than 1.5 million people displaced in Assam by the flooding since June 27, officials appealed to international agencies for assistance.

"We urge the Red Cross or any other aid agencies to send medical teams to assist our government health workers treat people suffering from various waterborne diseases like dysentery, gastroenteritis, jaundice and malaria," Assam state's health minister Bhumidhar Barman told AFP.

"If we dont take urgent steps now, the situation could assume epidemic proportions in coming days and weeks."

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

More land was inundated overnight in Assam when the Brahmaputra River broke through embankments, sending thousands of villagers fleeing to higher ground, an official said.

"Hundreds of families are living on river embankments, roadways or any elevated ground while some refused to flee their stranded homes and managed to survive on rooftops," eastern Dhemaji district lawmaker Dilip Saikia said by telephone.

Another 43 people have died in India in floods or landslides in the past month.

In Bangladesh, where waters have been spreading from the flooded north to the low-lying heart of the country, the situation has been stabilising in recent days, 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.

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