Air force helicopters join rescue effort in Bangladesh

CALCUTTA, India - Air force helicopters in Bangladesh rushed Tuesday to flood-ravaged villages to try to lift marooned villagers clinging to trees to safety.

In signs of fraying patience, residents in one isolated village in Bangladesh attacked the car of an administrator because of delays in providing relief, a newspaper said.

Other villagers attacked four policemen who tried to prevent them from cutting a hole in a dike to divert the waters away from their village.

Since Sept. 18, floods have killed more than 1,000, swept away millions of homes and left 20 million people marooned or homeless in India and neighboring Bangladesh. The death toll in Bangladesh has climbed past 50.

Air force helicopters in Bangladesh joined army and navy boats to deliver relief goods and rescue marooned villagers.

Thousands of people are stuck on the rooftops of their submerged houses or clinging to trees, waiting to be evacuated to safer areas, officials said.

Nearly 400,000 people have taken shelter in emergency relief camps set up on mud embankments or highways, they said.

In Satkhira town, thousands of residents on Monday piled sand bags to prevent floodwaters from gushing through cracks that developed along a 3-mile mud embankment, the Bengali-language daily Janakantha reported.

Some people attacked the car of a district administrator near Satkhira town for delay in providing relief and failing to protect them from looters, the newspaper said.

In Calcutta, India, the sky remained overcast on Tuesday, causing fears that rains may wash out Durga Puja celebrations, the biggest Hindu festival in eastern India.

The fresh rains blocked efforts by relief workers to reach many remote villages that have been inaccessible for the last two weeks. In some areas, the rain washed out the relief distribution networks.

''The rains are a real setback for relief and rescue efforts,'' Krishnendu Roy, a relief worker said.

As flood waters receded from some of the hardest-hit areas, relief workers found more bodies.

''The death toll is rising and the devastation is of enormous magnitude,'' West Bengal state's chief minister, Jyoti Basu, said in an appeal for help. The appeal appeared in Calcutta newspapers.

Vietnam's most severe flooding in decades has spread to Ho Chi Minh City, the country's commercial hub as the nationwide death toll rose to 241, said Do Ngoc Thien, deputy director of the Flood and Storm Control Department.

In Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon districts, suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, some families have been moved to higher ground and hundreds of acres of rice paddy have been inundated, he said.

The situation in the city itself is not serious, said Thien.

Meanwhile, many people hit by the floods in Bangladesh were reluctant to return to their homes, saying they have lost everything.

''The flood has destroyed my crops, my cattle and my home. I have nothing to go back to,'' said Monjur Islam, a farmer at a relief camp.