Two thousand people are now feared dead in floods caused after a river changed course submerging hundreds of villages in northern India, prompting claims that the Indian government is playing down the scale of the tragedy.

Although the official death toll in India's impoverished Bihar state is just 65, aid agencies claim that thousands are missing. The Kosi river breached its banks 11 days ago on the border with Nepal, flowing through a channel 75 miles east of its natural route.

Dr PV Unnikrishnan, ActionAid's emergencies adviser for Asia, said: "By not counting the missing, the government estimates not only result in inadequate compensation and rehabilitation processes, but also underplay the need for rescue and relief."

India's disaster management division said more than 2.6 million people in 16 districts had been affected. In Delhi, the UK's International Development department in said that although the Indian monsoon experienced heavy rains each year, this summer they had devastated an area that had historically never been under water.

One major worry concerns the loss of agricultural output - more than 70% of Bihar's 90 million people rely on the land. The government says almost 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) of farmland is under water, destroying wheat and rice.

Yesterday, the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announced a £115m relief package and freed 125,000 tonnes of emergency grain. Officials in Bihar claim that large parts of the state are cut off and aid agencies say there is a shortage of boats. Although 400,000 people have been moved to relief camps, ActionAid says people have been forced to drink unsafe water, with growing fears about water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/30/india.flooding