By Anis Ahmed and Bappa Majumder
DHAKA/KOLKATA, India, June 13 (Reuters) - Severe monsoon weather which devastated Bangladesh extended its grip over South Asia on Wednesday, killing a dozen people and disrupting transport in eastern India, officials said.
The death toll from a series of rain-triggered landslides in the Bangladesh port city of Chittagong rose to 118, and up to five million people across the country were either marooned or threatened by floods, disaster officials said.
"It's a curse from the heaven. What can we do?" said one shaken Chittagong resident, Mariam Begum.
The onset of annual monsoon rains at the weekend brought the heaviest rains in decades, officials said. The monsoon season will last until mid-September, and on Wednesday the weather front extended into neigbbouring eastern India.
At least 12 people were killed by lightning and electrocution as showers lashed the region, police and witnesses said.
Six children were killed instantly when lightning struck a school building in Ranchi, capital of the eastern state of Jharkhand, they said.
"Eleven other children from the school were seriously injured and are being treated in a local hospital," Manvinder Singh Bhatia, a senior police officer told Reuters in Ranchi.
In Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state, three members of one family were killed when lightning struck them in a street, Praveen Kumar, a senior police officer said.
Three others died after touching a live wire in separate areas of the eastern city as rains disrupted life completely, officials said.
Train services were disrupted and many flights were delayed.
LANDSLIDES
On Monday, landslides in Chittagong devastated hundreds of flimsy homes built on hillsides that had been illegally cleared of protective vegetation.
The Bangladeshi government ordered an investigation and vowed to punish the offenders.
Rescuers including troops, firefighters and police said they feared dozens of bodies could still be trapped.
"Although the floodwater has receded from most areas, other areas are still inundated, making it difficult for the diggers," one rescuer said.
More than two dozen people died in floods along the country's vast river basins and lightning killed at least another 15, disaster management and administration officials said.
Crops across a wide area were damaged, but no estimate of losses was immediately available. (Additional reporting by Serajul Islam Quadir and Nazimuddin Shyamol, and Bappa Majumder in Kolkata)
