Drowned worlds

Left: Bindeshwar Sahni outside his flooded house in Pir-muhammadpur village on the banks of the river Ganda which was submerged by recent flooding in India
Right: Margaret Clegg surveys the floodwaters and the damage outside her home in Toll Bar village outside Doncaster Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: Chinta Davi and her daughter Samundra in the village of Salempur, in the province of Bihar in India, which was totally flooded in August, forcing residents to set up home on road embankments
Right: Graham Leith and his son Kieran in Toll Bar, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, last June, where more than a month's rain fell in 24 hours Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: Sita Devi takes refuge outside her house in Pir-muhammadpur, on the banks of the river Ganda. Most of the village was submerged, forcing its residents into an emergency aid camp
Right: Natalie Pitaway and Scott Aiken sort through Aiken’s family photographs, in Gloucester, last July. Heavy rain caused the worst flooding of the river Severn since 1947 Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: Ajai Manjhi wades through the village of Madhubani Ghat. He should have been at school, where he is in year three, but all education had to be suspended for the duration of the floods
Right: A girl plays in waters flowing through Bentley in Doncaster Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: A flooded house surrounded by farmland near Muzaffarpur; in the background, a flooded school. The receding deluge left behind acres of stinking, stagnant sludge
Right: A river runs through the village of Catcliffe in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Residents were given just 15 minutes to leave their homes, in the middle of the night, because of fears that the dam wall at Ulley reservoir above their village might break Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: Women from Turkei Block near Muzaffarpur wait outside the local government offices for food in August
Right: Residents of Bentley in Doncaster survey the damage Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis

Left: Urmila Devi, Sangeeta Devi, Marni Devi and Nago Devi sit on a bed raised just above the floodwaters outside the home of Marni in the flooded village of Chajan Mania near Muzaffarpur
Right: Graham Leith and his son Kieran in the flooded house of Graham's mother Doreen Leith in Toll Bar village outide Doncaster. Doreen had been too shocked to come back to the house so her son and grandchild had come back to search for her insurance papers Photograph: Gideon Mendel for Action Aid/Corbis