Death toll from Nepal rains rises to 55
KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Flash floods and landslides in Nepal over the past three days has brought the death toll up to 55, with dozens missing and injured, the government said on Sunday.
Since Thursday, incessant monsoon rains have pounded many areas of the mostly mountainous Nepal, submerging large swathes of land, inundating homes, and destroying bridges and roads across the country.
A Home Ministry statement said 55 people have been confirmed dead, 33 injured, and 30 missing.
Television channels showed roofs of houses submerged in flood waters in the southern plains and people wading through chest-deep water with their belongings on their heads.
Officials said rains had eased in some areas, but some rivers in the eastern part of the country were still above flood level. Authorities asked residents to remain alert.
The Kosi River, which flows into the eastern Indian state of Bihar, was among those that had risen above the flood level.
Nepal police official Ishwari Dahal said that at the Nepal-India border, all 56 sluice gates in the Kosi barrage were opened last night for six hours to drain 371,000 cusecs of water, the highest accumulation in 15 years. A cusec is a measurement of flow equivalent to one cubic foot per second. “Its water level has gone down now,” Dahal said of the barrage site in southeast Nepal.
The Kosi has been a serious concern for both India and Nepal since its banks broke in 2008 and changed course, submerging swathes of land and affecting more than 2 million people in India’s Bihar state. About 500 people died in the 2008 disaster.