Rains, floods kill 17 in Nepal, 11 in India
At least 17 people have been killed across Nepal after torrential monsoon rains induced floods and landslides, officials said Friday.
In neighbouring northeastern India the death toll rose to 11, with six dead in Assam and another five in Arunachal Pradesh, officials said.
Heavy rains since Thursday have hit several districts in Nepal, especially in the country’s eastern region and the southern plains.
According to figures released by Nepal’s police, a further seven people have been injured and seven others reported missing.
Three were killed when a wall collapsed in the capital Kathmandu.
‘Local authorities and our security officials are all working to rescue people and bring them to safety. Helicopters are on standby if needed,’ home ministry official Umakanta Adhikari said.
Nepal’s weather department warned Thursday that heavy rains were expected to continue for two days, and advised people to stay alert.
Nearly 150 people died last year in Nepal during the rainy season, which typically begins in late June and lasts until the end of August.
In the northeastern Indian state of Assam monsoon floods have now inundated 21 districts, affecting thousands, officials said Friday.
Meanwhile, the heaviest average rainfall to lash a swathe of southern and eastern China in more than half a century brought torrential rain and floods, destroying houses, damaging crops and forcing the evacuation of nearly 80,000 people, state media said, reports Reuters.
Even more rain is expected, state television said on Thursday, after average rainfall in the affected areas this week was recorded as 51 per cent higher than in the corresponding periods of previous years, and the largest since 1961.
State television showed images of half-submerged buildings and flooded streets in some of the worst-hit areas. Trains along the Beijing-Guangzhou railway were delayed after rising waters blocked a bridge in the southern province of Hunan, it added.
The latest episode has caused losses of 2.69 billion yuan ($392 million), with 126,100 hectares (311,600 acres) of farmland damaged and 1,600 homes collapsed, the Ministry of Emergency Management has estimated.
As many as 77,000 people had been evacuated, it added.
The affected areas include the southern provinces of Hunan and Jiangxi, eastern Zhejiang, the southeastern province of Fujian, and the northern parts of the southwestern Guangxi region.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
