More than half the deaths were in Mumbai where 10 had people died in hospital since late Thursday, bringing the death toll in the city to 47, municipal commissioner Johny Joseph said.

Hospitals in Mumbai and elsewhere across the western state of Maharashtra were jammed with at least 3,500 so-called "fever cases," health officials said, adding the tally could be much higher as not all cases had been reported.

The situation in some hospitals in Mumbai was chaotic with many patients stretching out on floors as beds ran out.

"We're finding more and more cases of people with shooting fevers who are collapsing," said senior state health official P. Doke, said in Mumbai, India's business capital and home to the prolific Bollywood film industry.

"Instead of giving antibiotics orally, now we're giving them intravenously."

A major worry was an outbreak of leptospirosis that officials believed was responsible for many deaths but a host of cases of gastroenteritis, viral fever, dengue fever and other illnesses was also reported.

The state called in microbiologists from the Andaman-based National Leptospirosis Reference Centre, India's top research body for treating the illness, and the New Delhi's National Institute of Communicable Diseases to help fight the illness.

"We are going to tackle this in the best possible manner and we need the experts with us," R.R. Katti, a senior state health official told AFP.

Leptospirosis is caused by exposure to water contaminated with animal urine and its symptoms include high fever and vomiting. It can be treated with antibiotics.

"The outbreak is of concern" but under control, Katti said.

Health officials said time was a key factor in treating the illness.

"If not treated in time, leptospirosis has a 20 percent mortality rate" but quick treatment can cut it two percent, state director-general of health services Subhash Salukhe, a medical doctor, told The Times of India.

Many patients had waded through water up to neck deep to reach safety or get supplies during the week-long deluge that ended August 2. The rains were the worst-recorded in Maharashtra, India's industrial powerhouse.

The illnesses have been incubating since the incessant rains that turned streets into rivers and left piles of garbage and rotting animal carcasses.

"The risk factor is higher where people were directly in touch with contaminated water," said R.T. Kendre, chief medical officer of Thane district bordering Mumbai.

Television stations broadcast frequent warnings for people to take symptoms of fever and vomiting seriously and seek immediate medical attention. But municipal commissioner Joseph said there was "no cause for panic".

Since the floods, the state and the Red Cross have been running medical camps, handing out antibiotics and other drugs to people hit by the floods.

Environmentalists and urban planners blamed the widespread flooding in Mumbai, a city of 15 million, on poor drainage caused by unchecked development that blocked water exits.

Many critics accuse state politicians of being in league with developers, allowing them to build on wetlands, harming Mumbai's natural drainage system, and say the flooding was a "disaster waiting to happen".

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.