Almost 700 people have died in South Asia because of storms and heavy rains over the past 12 days.

While the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan has eased, rains caused havoc in Calcutta, one of India’s biggest cities, yesterday.

Many hospitals in the eastern city of 8 million people were flooded, and hundreds of people used lifeboats to move out of lowlying areas as forecasts predicted more rains.

There were angry protests as people were left without food or water. Crowds shouted slogans, blaming officials in the communist-ruled state for the slow pace of relief.

“Get out or we will drown you in this water,” they said, chasing away civic workers in south Calcutta.

“We’ve been starving since last night and with water taps submerged there is not a drop of water to drink,” said Chitra Bhowmik, a resident.

Train services were disrupted, most universities postponed examinations and many office workers took the day off. Schools and colleges remained closed.

The city’s information technology hub in the Salt Lake area, which houses the offices of many multinational companies, also suffered because workers were unable to reach their offices.

Subir Chatterjee, a software engineer, said: “With the streets flooded, reaching the office is impossible.”

In the western state of Gujarat, floodwaters inundated villages and farm lands.

Roadside kiosks and temples were also submerged and water lapped at the walls of schools and houses in lowlying areas of the state. Hundreds of factories remained closed.

“Water gushes from the highways into our villages . . . the fertile soil is being swept away,” said a resident of Palanpur, a small town in north Gujarat.

Government officials said the Army had deployed boats to help hundreds of thousands of marooned people.

In Pakistan’s desert-like Baluchistan province, Jam Mohammad Yousaf, the chief minister, said the death toll in flash floods had risen to 132.

“The floods affected about 2.25 million people and left up to 150,000 homeless,” he told a news conference in Quetta, the provincial capital.

The floods swept away roads and bridges, damaged crops, and washed away gas pipelines.

The cyclone and severe flooding caused losses of 90 billion rupees ($1.5 billion). (Reuters)

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