Water-borne diseases including diarrhoea have been on the rise as rivers receded in much of north Bangladesh. But residents and newspapers reported that fresh areas in the centre of the country were submerged as waters gushed south to the Bay of Bengal.

Disaster Management and Relief Minister Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf toured some of the worst-hit areas in northwestern Sirajganj district Friday and pledged that none of the victims would go hungry.

"The government would continue allocation of more relief materials for the flood victims so that nobody dies of starvation," Yusuf said, according to the official BSS news agency.

The minister ordered officials to quickly shift marooned villagers to safer places in Sirajganj, 105 kilometers (66 miles) from the capital Dhaka.

Some 1,000 families got 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of rice each in the district Friday.

Yusuf said medical teams would be sent to the affected areas to treat the ill.

Disaster management ministry sources said aid efforts were being geared up as damage reports from 26 flood-hit districts were being assessed.

At least 73 people have died and more than five million have been affected in 18 districts since flash floods began to hit Bangladesh in the beginning of June, according to official estimates.

In eastern India, 78 people have died from the floods and at least 3.7 million stranded. In Nepal, at least 49 people have died from floods and lightning.

A state of emergency is in force in India's state of Assam, and in Bangladesh troops were on alert with district civil chiefs advised to seek the army's help if flooding worsened.

But weather officials said the flooding in Bangladesh were likely to subside further in the next few days, although fresh monsoon rains might cause problems next month.

Bangladesh is criss-crossed by more than 230 rivers, which flood and ravage the country almost every year.

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

A decade later in 1998, Bangladesh was again ravaged by flooding, said to be the worst in a century, leaving millions homeless and causing huge damage to crop as well as infrastructure.

TERRA.WIRE