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Bangladesh

Bangladeshis keep up battle against raging river

DHAKA, July 14 (Reuters) - Soldiers, police and volunteers on Wednesday intensified a battle to evacuate thousands of people and save property after a swollen river burst its banks and flooded nearly 30 villages.

"There has been no success yet," said an official monitoring the efforts. "Only good news is that there has been no significant rainfall since Tuesday," he told Reuters.

The Gomti river washed away part of a 10 foot (three metres) high embankment at Ebderpur, 115 km (70 miles) southeast of Dhaka, on Sunday night, leaving a gap of 250 feet that has not been plugged, officials in the nearby town of Comilla said on Wednesday.

They said the floods had left about 60,000 people homeless, washed away 6,000 homes and rice paddy on 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares).

They said about 20,000 people had been shifted to safety but many more were stranded in half-submerged homes.

Many villagers lost their cattle and crops. No deaths had been reported, officials and police said.

Newspapers on Wednesday said six people died in floods sweeping other districts in the north and southeast over the past two days.

Officials did not confirm the reports but said some remote areas were still cut off as floods inundated roads.

Floods between July and September last year killed about 1,500 people, left millions homeless and destroyed more than two million tonnes of rice.