The Indian army was called out to rescue stranded people and distribute food yesterday as South Asia?s worst flooding in 15 years spread to parts of western India that were facing drought.

Around 1,400 people have been killed, most of them in Bangladesh and eastern India, in several weeks of intense monsoon rains. The rains are now moving westwards, bringing relief to some farmers in western India but disaster to others.

Floodwaters are now receding in the east of the subcontinent, leaving disease and devastation in their wake, especially in Bangladesh, two-thirds of which is still submerged.

In India?s western state of Gujarat at least 21 people were killed overnight by landslides and collapsed houses, according to the state?s relief commissioner V.A. Sathe.

?Earlier people were praying for rains. Now, everyone is praying for the rain to stop,? said Babubhai B. Viradia, a trader in the diamond and textile city of Surat, large parts of which were under water.

Evacuation

The army has been called in to Surat and other cities in low-lying southern parts of Gujarat to rescue people and distribute food. The coastal town of Daman was cut off after a newly built bridge collapsed. More than 400 villages were also marooned in southern Gujarat after four days of rains, and more than 50,000 people have already been evacuated.

?The situation is grim in large part of the south,? Sathe said. ?And the forecast is for heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next 24 hours.?

Huge tailbacks formed as traffic came to a complete standstill on the New Delhi to Bombay highway which passes through Gujarat. Heavy rains also lashed Bombay, India?s financial hub, halting outbound trains and flooding busy streets.

At least 17 people, mostly children, were injured in Bombay when the wall of a housing complex collapsed, while officegoers waded through knee-deep water to reach work.

In Bangladesh, where flood waters have been receding in the past two days, authorities reported 11 more deaths caused by people drinking muddy flood water and eating stale food, bringing the death toll to nearly 670.

?We are facing an uphill battle to save lives threatened by swiftly spreading diarrhoeal disease,? said one Bangladeshi official in the government?s flood control room.

Authorities also fear an outbreak of malaria and dengue fever caused by mosquito bites and skin diseases in flood-hit areas, including the capital Dhaka, parts of which are still submerged.

Fresh rains from Tuesday in some parts of Bangladesh have rekindled fears of more flooding, and meteorologists said more heavy rains could hit later this month.

?I could not sleep all night as rain and winds swept my village,? said Mohammad Belal in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria, where most houses were still under water.

?People?s hopes for quick relief from the flooding have been dashed by reports that another deluge might hit us around middle of this month,? said Syed Mohammad Afzal, a journalist from Brahmanbaria. ?We are passing days amid growing panic.?

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said the floods had cost the country more than $7 billion, adding the UN would appeal to donors next week to support a major reconstruction plan.

?The stricken country will need at least one year to recover from the massive damage to its land, its people and its economy,? Douglas Casson Coutts, WFP country representative and acting UN resident coordinator, said yesterday

Coutts said tens of millions of Bangladeshis faced grave food insecurity, water-borne diseases, a badly mangled infrastructure and extremely poor prospects for the next rice crop.

?If the people in the countryside find themselves without food or any form of livelihood, they are bound to migrate to the cities in search of of survival ? cities that are already overwhelmed by the mushrooming slum populations,? Coutts warned.

?Bangladesh cannot afford any more urbanisation. We have to give people the means to stay home and help rebuild their communities.?

<B>Thomas Kutty ABRAHAM</B>