Soldiers spearheading relief and rescue operations found the bodies in Assam's worst-hit Goalpara district, 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the main city of Guwahati, said Anil Mazumdar, additional district magistrate of Goalpara.

"There are several low-lying villages that are still submerged and we fear the death toll will further mount as reports of more dead bodies lying scattered in the district have come in," Mazumdar told AFP by telephone.

The overall situation in Assam had improved Monday with the water in most parts receding, he said.

Weather officials said the deluge, the worst in a decade to soak the region outside of a monsoon period, was caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal.

Assam accounted for 155 of the 162 deaths reported from the state while neighbouring Meghalaya accounted for the others.

Indian soldiers were also running free kitchens and providing emergency first aid and healthcare services for the hundreds of thousands of displaced villagers.

"With the water level receding, our soldiers are looking for dead bodies, besides offering help in the form of food and other relief materials," an army spokesman said.

Of the victims, 137 drowned in separate incidents in Goalpara district while the others died in landslides in Guwahati.

About 55,000 people are staying in 53 makeshift relief camps in Goalpara, while another 30,000 displaced by the flash floods are living in government camps in other parts of Assam.

"We don't have a house to go back to as the sudden floods swept away everything," said Nur Mohammed, a community elder in Bolbola village in Goalpara.

Assam's chief minister Tarun Gogoi was touring the Goalpara district Monday to assess the damage caused by the flooding.

"We shall take all possible steps to meet the challenge caused by the devastating floods," he said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.