Rain-swollen rivers burst their banks across South Asia on Thursday, flooding more villages and raising the death toll to 254 in Bangladesh, Nepal and India. More than 4 million were homeless or stranded. Floods gripped a third of Bangladesh, where nearly 3 million people remained stranded in their swamped villages, the Relief Ministry said in a preliminary assessment Thursday. Seventy-four people have been killed in Bangladesh.

Landslides killed 50 people Wednesday night in three remote mountain villages in Nepal, said Makwanpar district chief officer Deepak Joshi. That left a death toll of 150, with another 100 missing, in a week of landslides caused by rain in the Himalayan kingdom.

In India, floods submerged about 1,000 villages in northeastern Assam state, where at least six people have been killed, said the state's Flood Control Minister, Nurjamal Sarkar. In eastern Bihar, 24 people have been killed and 1 million people left homeless, said that state's divisional commissioner, Jai Ram Lal Meena.

The Kosi River overflowed its banks on Thursday, submerging new villages in Bihar, as army helicopters dropped food packets to those stranded on rooftops or bits of high ground.

In Assam, a national park that is home to the world's largest habitat of one-horned rhinoceroses was engulfed by flood waters, forcing the endangered animals to move across a busy highway in search of higher ground.

"Since Tuesday, I have seen elephant herds in hundreds and rhinos migrating by crossing the highway to escape the floods," Park Director N.K. Vasu said on Thursday. At least 10 animals, including a sambar deer and a large Indian civet, were hit by vehicles during the past few days, he said.

Except for artificially built highlands, the entire park is submerged, with water levels ranging from five to 10 feet, Vasu said.
Most of Bangladesh's 250 rivers continued to rise Thursday because of continuing rains, and it will get worse in the next few days, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said.

Floods are an annual feature in the low-lying delta nation of 130 million people. Most of its rivers originate in the Himalayas and run through India before draining into the Bay of Bengal.

On Thursday, the overflowing Jamuna, Teesta and Padma rivers flooded nearly 100 new villages in Bangladesh's northern districts of Sirajganj, Kurigram and Rangpur.

The fresh floods swept away five more people on Wednesday and stranded nearly 100,000 in the region, 65 miles north of the capital Dhaka, said government relief officials. Surging waters knocked down 200 flimsy huts, forcing nearly 2,000 people to find shelter in schools or on embankments that were built to protect villages and crops from floods.

Villagers used boats and rafts to travel as roads were damaged or submerged

PHOTO CAPTION

Flood affected villagers migrate to safer places, in a boat, in Samarjam village, East India. (AP Photo/Aman Sharma)