Torrential monsoon rains and overflowing rivers have worsened flooding in eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh and officials say 218 people have died and more than six million people have been left homeless in the last five days.
The eastern Indian states of Bihar and Assam were the worst hit in the second wave of flooding this month as rivers fed by monsoon rains breached their banks and submerged thousands of villages, forcing people to flee their homes.
Officials said 32 people died in Bihar in 24 hours as three rivers, which originate in neighbouring Nepal, flowed into the state with the highest water discharge in the last 30 years.
The state legislative assembly was told the homes of more than four million had been flooded and people living in more than 5,000 villages displaced.
In Assam, swirling floodwaters left 1.2 million people homeless and killed 20 people as the mighty Brahmaputra river and its tributaries damaged two dozen dams. Assam's flood control minister said the floods caused widespread damage to infrastructure and sparked fears of a food shortage as supplies struggle to get through.
Soldiers used motor boats and helicopters to rescue marooned villagers and drop food packets. More than 100 relief camps set up as shelters have been washed away.
Flooding has been particularly bad this year with erratic monsoon rains pouring over eastern India and adjoining countries while the rest of India has been hit by its worst drought in a decade.
In Nepal, which has received its heaviest rains in 30 years, 155 people were reported dead in floods and landslides since Sunday and 30 people reported missing. Officials in Bangladesh said the death toll in the latest wave of flooding had risen to 11 and the homes of more than a million people have been flooded.
Further east in Asia, floods killed 10 people in two Chinese provinces as the latest wave of storms triggered landslides and toppled billboards.