Swollen rivers swamped thousands of villages and towns across India's south and west yesterday, forcing 4.5 million from their homes and shutting down a natural gas plant and petrochemical factories in the west. India's annual monsoon rains have triggered floods across at least five states since the weekend, killing at least 315 people - including 21 new deaths reported yesterday in Maharashtra - and causing widespread damage to crops.

In the western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, military boats and helicopters continued to reach out to thousands who remained marooned on trees and rooftops, many without food and water, after rivers burst their banks and flooded homes.

In Gujarat, scores of villages and the industrial town of Surat, known for its diamond-cutting and textile trades, went without power as floodwaters inundated the region, leaving around three million people homeless.

Indian television channels said 90 per cent of the town was submerged and showed pictures of people wading through waist-high water and vehicles almost totally submerged. Officials said phone lines were down and there was an acute shortage of drinking water.

Industrial production has been badly affected in the nearby coastal city of Hazira, with Oil and Natural Gas Corp's gas plant flooded and production disrupted at a petrochemicals complex run by Reliance Industries.

Once the waters recede, restoring gas supplies could take up to a week, the Business Standard newspaper said, quoting unnamed officials at the Gas Authority of India Ltd, the organisation responsible for distributing gas from ONGC's Hazira plant.

Several low-lying areas in Mumbai, India's financial hub and Maharashtra's capital, remained flooded.

In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, some 6,000 villages were flooded, leaving around 1.5 million homeless and forcing thousands on to trees and rooftops. "We haven't eaten for three days," a resident of a flood-affected village said by telephone.

"The area under submergence is increasing every hour due to the backwaters," said MVPC Sastry, a senior flood official, adding that military helicopters were dropping food packets and water rations to the marooned.

In many areas, villagers were taking turns through the night to watch over water levels. At least 350 villages had been completely cut off.

Meanwhile, ruling Congress party president Sonia Gandhi visited Andhra Pradesh, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh planned to visit hard-hit Maharashtra and Gujarat today.

In neighbouring Afghanistan, authorities pleaded for emergency relief for thousands left homeless by heavy rains in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 35 people in recent days.

The worst hit areas were Ghazni, Paktika and Paktia provinces, where officials complained they have received little help. General Abdul Anan Raufi, police chief of Paktia, said 17 people died in the last 10 days and 50 families were displaced. In Paktika, the toll was 15. The US military plans to deliver aid to shelter and feed 9,000 of the Afghan flood victims, a US military statement said.

PHOTO CAPTION

Residents carry drinking water through a flooded street in Surat, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006. (AP)