PATNA, India (AP) -- 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 Monday.

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 to evacuate, he said.
Government engineers were digging a new channel to correct the course of the Kosi River — which flows from neighboring 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 K. R. Sinha, a state government engineer, on Monday.
The damage to nearly 1,250 miles of highways and 250 road bridges was estimated around $523 million.
Already, hundreds of cases of pneumonia, diarrhea and high fevers have been reported in relief camps. Doctors started immunization drives over the weekend to counter fears that waterborne diseases will spread as the number of camp residents grow.
In neighboring Bangladesh, the Flood Forecasting and Warning Center said in a bulletin on Sunday that most major rivers were flowing above the danger mark and floodwaters were only likely to start receding by the end of next week.
The government gave no details about the number of people killed in Bangladesh, but news reports have said at least 19 people have died over the last two weeks.
The monsoon season, which runs from June to September every year, brings rain vital for the farmers of South Asia but also can cause massive destruction.