The high court order came after a number of Bollywood personalities and a non-governmental organisation filed a petition seeking action by government officials, accusing them of "total" disaster management failure.

Critics have been livid over what they say has been the lax response to the disaster by authorities in the western state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, in the face of the week-long monsoon deluge that ended August 2.

For two days when the flooding that turned streets into rivers was at its peak, municipal authorities in Mumbai gave civic workers the day off.

The court expressed serious concern over mounds of garbage and lack of drinking water.

The court also told the state government to disclose names of civic and government officials who can provide help and information to the victims of the worst flooding in living memory, as well as compile a list of the dead.

"People must know who are the public faces who are accountable," it said in response to the court petition filed by Project Smita, a Mumbai-based NGO alongside Bollywood film maker Mahesh Bhatt, producer-director Ashok Pandit and theatre personality Aleque Padamsee.

Some 1,071 people drowned or were crushed by landslides across the state in the rains.

Now a further 251 people have died of water-borne diseases as thousands of so-called "fever cases" crowd hospitals, a senior official said Wednesday.

"The death toll in Mumbai rose to 159 while in neighouring districts it was 92, taking the total figure to 251," additional state health director P. Doke told AFP.

Flood victims, many of whom waded through water up to their necks to reach safety or get supplies, have been turning up at hospitals suffering from gastroenteritis, dengue fever, jaundice, dysentery, malaria, leptospirosis and other illnesses.

While municipal authorities say the growth in the number of cases appears to be slowing, thousands are still jamming ill-equipped hospitals for treatment.

"The leptospirosis outbreak is clearly on the decline with only 45 cases reported in the past 24 hours against an average 70 in the past few days," city municipal commissioner Johny Joseph said.

Leptospirosis is caused by exposure to water contaminated with animal urine and symptoms include high fever and vomiting.

Environmentalists and urban planners blame the widespread flooding in Mumbai on poor drainage caused by unscrupulous development that blocked water exits.

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.

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