Around 40,000 residents of at least 10 village development committees (VDC) along the Koshi river in Susari district in eastern Nepal have been forced to take shelter in local schools and their relatives' houses as the swollen river has breached an embankment in the western side. According to local officials, the displaced people have been put up at 12 government-run schools, government offices and private homes in Inaruwa, the district headquarters of Sunsari. Dev Narayan Yadav of the Koshi Pidit Samak, an organisation of people victimised by the annual floods in the Koshi river, said the displaced, many of whom were in a very bad condition, were in a desperate need of food, shelter and medicines. According to Shankar Kharel, a local correspondent of The Kathmandu Post, a leading English daily in Nepal, hundreds of people have been missing and at least three persons had been swept away by the swollen river. The police said the bodies of two women and one man were found floating on the roof of an inundated house. Shripur and Haripur VDCs had been hit hard by the swollen river that forced its way to the settlements Monday afternoon after damaging embankments in the western Kushaha villages. Meanwhile, a team of the Nepal Army and the police, which are deployed in the flood affected sites, have rescued around 5,000 persons. Sunsari local development officer Guru Subedi said around 5,000 persons may still be stranded in these VDCs. Reports say floodwater has also crept into the some villages of the Indian state of Bihar forcing the local residents to flee.