Flooding in India's northeastern state of Assam worsened yesterday as overnight rains submerged scores more villages, leaving up to 700,000 people cut off, officials said.

"The river Brahmaputra and its tributaries are rising menacingly, breaching embankments and snapping road links across the state," Assam Flood Control Minister Nurzamal Sarkar told the wire service.

"Apart from the worst-hit eastern Assam district of Dhemaji, several villages in the districts of Morigaon and Sonitpur have also been submerged in overnight flooding," he said.

Road communication between Dhemaji and rest of Assam has been snapped for the past five days with floodwaters overtopping the national highway in at least three places.

"At least 150 villages in Morigaon district have come under floodwaters overnight following a breach in an embankment," the minister added.

Unrelenting rain over the past week has inundated up to 17,500 villages in the state and Sarkar said the danger was far from over.

"We are extremely worried with most of the tributaries of the Brahmaputra showing a rising trend and flowing much above the danger level at various places," he said.

Rescuers yesterday and the day before battled to move hundreds of thousands of people trapped by floodwaters to safety.

At least eight districts in the state have been hit by the floods.

The government yesterday opened relief camps in the worst-hit

districts of Dhemaji and Morigaon to shelter homeless villagers.

"We have asked the district administrations to open relief camps and provide food and medicines to the inmates," Sarkar said. "The army has been alerted and asked to assist the civil authorities in relief and rescue operations."

The state meteorological observatory in Guahati forecast more heavy rains over the weekend in Assam.

"Heavy rains accompanied by thunder squall are likely to hit Assam during the next 48-hours," a weather office official said.

Flash floods triggered by monsoon rains in India have already killed hundreds of people. As well as Assam, the worst-affected states have been West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

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N K Vasu, the park warden of Kaziranga, home to the almost-extinct one-horned rhinoceros, said the swollen Brahmaputra River and its tributaries had flooded the low-lying national park forcing the animals to migrate to higher ground.

"There has been a steady movement of animals from the park to safer areas with the floodwater already submerging the lowlands inside the sanctuary," Vasu said over the telephone.