By Biswajyoti Das GUWAHATI, India, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Desperation is spreading among millions of people made homeless by monsoon flooding in South Asia, with hungry victims clashing with police and looting food on Thursday as hundreds of villages remained cut off. Adding to the widespread misery in the densely populated region, monkeys, crazed with hunger due to the lack of food, have bitten at least 20 people in eastern India, officials said. On Thursday, floods swamped new areas in two eastern Indian states and neighbouring Bangladesh, with victims scrambling -- often in waist-deep water -- to reach dry land. Around 30 million people have been affected by the flooding and rains in the region, through which numerous large rivers wind. More than 150 people have died over the past eight days, due to drowning, snakebites, and house collapses.Incensed by the apparently slow response of authorities, flood victims in the Indian state of Bihar looted a truck loaded with bread in the northern Muzaffarpur district.Further east in Darbhanga, officials also faced their ire."Where is our relief? We are dying for some food," they shouted at a visiting government official. Officials estimate up to 7 million people may be affected in the impoverished state of around 90 million.As thousands huddled on highways and railway tracks, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been in Mauritius for the past week seeking investment from the tiny island nation. BULLETS INSTEAD OF FOOD In India's northeastern state of Assam, where nearly 3 million out of its 27 million residents are homeless, people clashed with police, demanding food, shelter and medicines at several places. Many were injured in the clashes, and police had to fire in the air to stop the violence, officials said. A 10-year-old boy was shot by police in one protest on Thursday in the west of the state. In other places, homeless people blocked roads in protest. A lucky few grabbed food sacks dropped by military helicopters. Nearly 700,000 hectares (1.73 million acres) of farmland have been submerged in Assam, destroying mainly paddy. "It will be hard for us to recover our losses, and the government is not at all bothered," Rudraprasad Goswami, a farmer whose paddy fields and house have been destroyed, said over the phone from central Assam. More rainfall is forecast in Assam. MISERY ACROSS BORDERS In neighbouring Bangladesh, things were equally grim. "We have lost almost everything -- our homes, crops and anything needed to survive," said 45-year-old Tara Banu in Sirajganj district, 150 km (90 miles) north of Dhaka, capital of impoverished Bangladesh. "We have been virtually starving for several days," she said. An exhausted Banu and her family as well as several of their cows and calves trudged along a highway with other flood victims, all seeking dry land. More than half of impoverished Bangladesh is covered in floodwater, with more than 20 million people affected. Thousands of families have moved into about 1,000 relief camps but many others are living on embankments and highways, with cases of diarrhoea and skin infections rising sharply. Witnesses have reported shortages of baby food, other edibles and drinking water in flood shelters in government buildings and schools, though the government said it had sufficient stocks. Officials forecast more flooding, saying parts of Dhaka could come under water in a few days. The annual monsoon season is vital to subcontinent's economy and agricultural growth but causes hundreds of deaths and displaces or maroons millions of people every year. On Thursday, monsoon rains disrupted the signalling system of the rail network near the Indian capital New Delhi, forcing thousands of passengers to walk along the tracks for hours. Several streets were waterlogged in the capital, creating traffic snarls. ((Anis Ahmed and Ruma Pal in Dhaka and Hasibur Rahman Bilu in Bogra) (Writing by Kamil Zaheer, editing by Simon Denyer; Reuters Messaging: kamil.zaheer.reuters.com@reuters.net; +91-11-4178 1000))
