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Bangladesh, Bhutan and India face severe flood

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	Flood affected people in the village of Nathua, India stack their belongings along the Diana River in the district of Jalpaiguri Tuesday August 8, 2000. Floods in recent days have displaced as many as 2.5 million people in eastern India and neighboring Bhutan. (AP Photo/Tarun Das)

August 9, 2000 

GAUHATI (AP) - Torrential rains triggered flash floods and mudslides in Bhutan, northeastern India and Bangladesh, leaving at least 140 people dead and millions homeless, officials said Tuesday.

The landlocked Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan said Tuesday that at least 50 people died and hundreds are homeless because of flash floods and mudslides from torrential rains.

At least 11 high rise buildings in Tala collapsed because of the unprecedented flash floods, according to Lynpo Khandu Wangchuk, Bhutan's minister for trade, who spoke from Phuntsholing, 110 miles (177 kilometers) south of the Bhutan capital, Thimphu.

Wangchuk said rescue workers were still trying to determine the exact death toll. Earlier media reports said 200 had died in the floods.

Across the border to the south in India's Assam state, the death toll rose to 80 from drowning or disease, government officials said. More than 2 million have been left homeless in the remote northeast region.

Villagers watch the remains of an electricity pylon that was uprooted by flood water in Falakata, near Siliguri, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Monday August 7, 2000. Severe floods have affected the eastern part of India, cutting off communication routes and power supplies and affecting thousands of families. (AP Photo/Tarun Das)

The floods also submerged a large part of the Kaziranga National Park in India, home to 1,600 one-horned rhinos and hundreds of elephants.

"Most of the elephants and rhinos have been taking refuge in highlands close to the park area," warden Parthasarathi Das said. Another official said some villagers had started to hunt the animals.

In northern Bangladesh, 12 people died and thousands were homeless in rains that relentlessly pound much of South Asia during monsoon season.

In Pakistan, officials said Tuesday that flash floods in the west swept away a car on Monday, killing six children and a woman.

The flash floods in Bhutan left many in the nation of 700,000 stranded and because of submerged roads, relief efforts.

Some of the flooding occurred from the swollen Varsha and Dhuti Khola rivers in Bhutan, which have flooded large areas of Phuntsholing, the country's main economic center, since Thursday. The Central Water Commission had measured 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain since Thursday, but does not have accurate measures to compare rainfalls from the past.

"A number of houses were washed away. Trucks, buses and other vehicles in the area were submerged, and two main water pipelines had burst, cutting off the town's water supply," Wangchuk said.

At least 40 people, mostly road construction workers, were washed away at Pasakha in southern Bhutan, he said. More bodies might have drifted to the Indian side in West Bengal state, he said.

Another eight people were buried in severe landslides at Tala, close to Pasakha, while two men drowned, said Wangchuk, who is overseeing relief and rescue operations.