Manjhi's macabre hobby points to the serious problem of disposing of dead bodies, which for Hindus normally involves cremation.

Survivors said they were searching for dry timber to cremate the dead from the myriad villages and hamlets completely washed away by the six rivers criss-crossing this eastern region.

Nearby Darbhanga district has a sizeable Muslim population and thus an even bigger problem, as most traditional graveyards are under several feet of water.

"It is a very tricky situation as we can't just bury our dead anywhere," said Afzal, one of the many stranded Muslims, who gave only one name.

District administrator Upendra Sharma confirmed that graveyards were flooded in Darbhanga, where 2.2 million people have been displaced.

"Many graveyards are under water but we will help people to find burial places," Sharma said, as local people pointed out that recently buried bodies were floating to the surface in several cemeteries.

"We do not have such reports but I will look into it," the harried official said, noting he had to focus first on the supply of drinking water and food to tens of thousands of people facing starvation.

Although Bihar's rivers are now receding after three days without rain, only raised roads and clusters of tree-tops stand out above the floodwaters in Darbhanga.

"The (dead body) issue needs to be addressed urgently because after the rivers recede rotting corpses will compound the already-existing risk to general health," said Alok Verma, a volunteer expert at a first-aid centre.

In Samastipur district, where a spate of boat accidents this week left more than 65 dead, villagers said sodden wood was causing anguish for bereaved Hindu families who could not get funeral pyres to light.

"We had to scavenge timber from an overturned truck for a cremation," said Lagan Ram in Samastipur, where 1.4 million people are stranded and around 587 villages inundated.

Sharawan Kumar, the district magistrate, said the authorities were concerned only with flood-related deaths.

"All flood-related deaths are already being brought here for autopsies but others dying of natural causes can be brought to the town which is not submerged and we will provide the facilities," Kumar said.

"Besides, entire areas are not under water and relatives can seek higher ground for burial or cremation purposes.

"Also, if there's large-scale shortage of dry timber then the administration will come out and help families of the deceased," the official told AFP by telephone.

The annual monsoon has caused massive flooding and left a trail of destruction from Nepal through India to Bangladesh, killing around 1,900 people since June.

earlier related report
Flooded South Asia cries out for food aid as health fears rise
Patna, India (AFP) Aug 08, 2007 India and Bangladesh battled Wednesday to deliver food and water to millions of flood victims as South Asia's raging rivers recede leaving 1,900 dead, a trail of destruction and fear of epidemics. The United Nations and charity Oxfam said millions of dollars in aid were needed to get relief supplies to some of the 28 million people displaced across India, Bangladesh and Nepal by the worst monsoon-triggered flooding in decades.

In Dhaka, the authorities were facing outbreaks of water-borne diseases as floodwaters fell and the local death toll climbed to 328 people, officials said Wednesday.

At least 18,300 people suffering from diarrhoea have been admitted to hospitals across Bangladesh in the past eight days due to a shortage of drinking water, health spokesman Aisha Akhter said.

There have also been outbreaks of respiratory, skin and eye diseases over the past week, said Akhter, noting reports of more than 4,000 new cases of water-borne diseases in the past 24 hours.

"The situation is very acute and alarming," said Shahadat Hossain, a doctor at the country's largest diarrhoea hospital in the capital, Dhaka.

The government said it had mobilised thousands of medical workers and distributed millions of water purification tablets.

Bangladesh's flood monitoring agency said inundated areas were still suffering acute shortages of food even as officials said 8,000 tonnes of food had been distributed since late July.

The military-backed government has appealed to political parties, wealthy citizens and foreign countries to help rush food supplies to nine million flood victims.

In India's Bihar state, some 12 million people have seen their homes and farmland partially or totally submerged after the worst flooding in 30 years.

Health experts also voiced fears of disease and the main hospital in state capital Patna reported scores of patients turning up with symptoms of waterborne viruses such as hepatitis.

"People are being treated wherever they can lie down and frankly we don't know what we will do as more are being brought in everyday," a hospital spokesman told AFP.

Bihar's chief relief coordinator, R.K. Singh, said distribution of safe drinking water to marooned populations was proving to be an Herculean task.

"In 70 percent of cases water pouches burst on impact after being air-dropped and so we will now consider putting plastic water bottles in the food packets that are dropped by helicopters," he said.

India's ruling Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi and home minister Shivraj Patil visited Bihar on Tuesday to assess losses from the floods that inundated 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres) of farmland.

The state asked the government for two million tonnes of wheat and rice to feed its flood-affected population, including two million people still living in the open.

"We have seen for ourselves the massive destruction caused by the floods and the centre (national government) will do everything to mitigate the sufferings of the masses," Patil told reporters.

National authorities have put the estimated losses to the state at about 38 million dollars.

Huge swathes of Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Assam states were also submerged during the rains, affecting another 6.5 million people.

Assam relief minister Bhumidhar Barman told AFP the situation had greatly improved in the northeastern state, where 870,000 hectares were submerged and 9,291 homes destroyed.

India's national disaster management agency said 1,428 people had died of monsoon-related causes from the start of the season in June to Tuesday. But the figure did not include deaths from numerous boat accidents in Bihar late Monday, bringing the toll to around 1,500.

In Nepal, at least 95 people have died since the monsoon began at the start of June, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. More than 330,000 people have been affected, mostly in the southern plains bordering Bihar.

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