The army was sent to help some two million people stranded in 20 of Assam's 24 districts, a provincial government spokesman said.

The floods worsened overnight in eastern Sibsagar district, forcing the administration to call in army toops for rescue and relief measures, he said.

"About 100 villages have gone under water in Sibsagar with people looking for help to reach safer areas," said brigadier A.K. Gulati, in charge of a relief contingent.

"Our troops are rescuing marooned villagers using mechanised boats. We are providing relief materials to the people as well," he said, as Assam reported two more deaths on Friday.

In India's eastern Bihar state, rising rivers worsened the flood situation and killed another seven people, an official said.

"Three people in Madhubani and two each in Sitamarhi and Sheohar districts have been killed in floods," state relief department official Upendra Sharma told AFP.

In northern India, the monsoon tightened its grip on Friday, killing at least 16 people and swamping parts of the national capital of New Delhi, officials said.

The New Delhi fire department said three children aged between eight and 12 and a man were killed when a 70-foot (21-metre) high factory wall under which they were sheltering collapsed in New Delhi's western suburb of Nangloi.

A 22-year-old man drowned in a rain-induced pool in Jharela in the city's south and six others were injured in two separate incidents of falling trees and collapsing walls, a department spokesman told AFP.

Eight others died Friday in the northern desert state of Rajasthan as monsoon rains lashed the region, damaging an unspecified number of reservoirs in the region, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

In the northern city of Kanpur, three people were killed Friday after being struck by lightening, it added.

The heavy rains that began late Thursday crippled life in the capital city of 14 million people.

The weather office reported 12 centimetres (4.7 inches) of rainfall since Thursday and warned the downpour was likely to punish New Delhi at least until Saturday.

The rains also flooded posh residential districts and blocked a key road to the city's upscale diplomatic enclave in some of the worst weather-related chaos in New Delhi in recent years.

In Nepal, home ministry officials said 49 people had been killed in the last month.

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.

In Bangladesh, the number of people reported dead in weather-related incidents is 67, with many killed in landslides in the southeastern hill tracts late last month.

TERRA.WIRE