At least 35 boat passengers were feared drowned in the overflowing Ganges river in eastern India on Monday as victims of South Asia's devastating floods fought over food supplies and resorted to looting, officials said.
The boat was carrying about 100 people when it overturned in Samastipur district in Bihar state, about an hour by road northeast of the state capital of Patna, said district administrator Sashank Shekhar Singh. More than 455 people have died in India, Bangladesh and Nepal in the latest phase of the annual monsoon floods, which began two to three weeks ago.
Earlier, one teenager drowned in Bihar's Darbhanga district as he went after food being dropped by helicopter, and dozens of others have been injured in similar scrambles or in fights over dwindling food supplies. The floods, the worst in living memory in some areas, have affected 35 million people in the region and are being seen by some as a symptom of climate change.
Women and children in a Bihar village clashed over small packets of biscuits being handed out by a local aid organisation, while villagers in another part of the state looted a tractor full of grain, officials said.
In Bihar's Begusarai district, hundreds of people living in makeshift tarpaulin and bamboo shelters on mud embankments rushed down to a nearby field as a helicopter hovered close to the ground. Four helicopters were skimming over the north of the state, pushing out thousands of sacks of rice, flour, palm sugar, salt, candles and matches - but it was clear that demand was outstripping supply.
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