Hundreds of thousands of Indian flood refugees are likely to spend six months in state-run relief camps while authorities rebuild homes, roads and river embankments in the flood-ravaged north, officials said yesterday.

More than 257,000 people have taken shelter in 313 state-run camps in Bihar state, where the Kosi River burst its banks last month and turned hundreds of square miles of land into a giant lake, said Prataya Amrit, a state disaster management official.

The state's top elected official, Nitish Kumar, said the relief camps would run for another six months because repairing damaged embankments, homes, highways and village roads will take at least that long.

Authorities have confirmed 42

deaths, but it is widely believed the final toll will be much higher.

Rescue workers have evacuated 914,000 people from nearly 1,000 flooded villages. But with river levels falling by more than two feet over the last few days, more than 30,000 have returned to their homes ignoring official warnings that their homes were still not safe, Amrit said.

Another 50,000 people have refused to abandon their homes in flood-hit areas despite pleas by authorities toevacuate, he said.

Government engineers were digging a new channel to correct the course of the Kosi River which flows from neighbouring Nepal and plug the mile-long breach in the embankment. They also have started repairing roads to allow faster movement of relief supplies in the region, said KR Sinha, a state government engineer, on Monday.