The Indian army has been called out to help the authorities in the north-eastern state of Assam as they try to cope with severe flooding which affected nearly one million people.

Parts of India and Nepal have been experiencing torrential monsoon rains for the past three days.

Some 70 people have now died in floods and landslides in Nepal in less than a week.

Nepal floods

Houses have collapsed and hundreds of hectares of farmland swept away across Nepal with the worst damage in the eastern and central parts of the country.

Some areas in the capital, Kathmandu, have also been inundated.

Transport in major highways linking Kathmandu with the rest of the country has been blocked at several points.

Forty-six people died last week when landslides swept away two villages in the eastern hill district, Khotang.

Assam

Several embankments on the main Brahmaputra River in India's Assam state have breached engulfing more than 600 villages.

About 30,000 hectares of crops were also submerged.

All rivers in Assam are flowing at dangerous levels threatening several new areas, officials said.

The eastern district of Dhemaji was among the worst affected by a breach in the embankment, with at least 250,000 people stranded by the rising waters.

Relief efforts

The Deputy Commissioner of Dhemaji, BR Shyamal, told the BBC that relief camps were being set up to shelter thousands of marooned villagers.

He said it would take at least two months for the water levels to recede.

Officials say the biggest problem now is a shortage of supplies for the relief camps.

They have appealed to international aid agencies to provide thousands of tarpaulins to be used as temporary shelters, as well as water purification tablets and medicines.

The authorities have also pressed into service motor and other boats to ferry those stranded to safer areas.

State officials said food prices have soared and essential supplies cannot be transported to the flood affected areas.

Officials said they have requested the Food Corporation of India, the agency responsible for the procurement and distribution of food grains, to supply 100,000 kg of rice to the relief camps.

Annual problem

Parts of Assam and the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh remain cut off from the rest of the country as flooding waters have destroyed transport links.

Floods in the north-east of India are an annual phenomenon.

In August 2000, floods in the region killed 100 people, and left 700,000 people homeless in Assam alone.

Environmentalists blame soil erosion, the silting of river beds and the increasing population of flood plains.