Monsoon death toll in Nepal and India hits 94

Monsoon floods and landslides killed 94 people across Nepal and India at the weekend, but officials fear the death toll will rise as rescuers search for dozens feared lost under mud and in submerged villages.

Authorities on Sunday increased the death toll across landlocked Nepal to 49 as the water kept rising, forcing thousands to flee to higher ground.

“Another 17 are missing. Search and rescue works are under way but the water levels have not subsided yet,” said Shankar Hari Acharya, chief of Nepal’s national emergency centre.

The Red Cross estimated a death toll of 53, with dozens more missing or injured, and thousands of homes destroyed.

In neighbouring India, a landslide in the mountainous north swept two passenger buses off a hillside and into a gorge on Saturday night, killing 45 people.

The coaches had stopped in Himachal Pradesh when tonnes of rock and mud cascaded down a mountainside.

The disaster came after days of heavy rain. Hundreds have died across India in torrential rain, floods and landslides since the start of the wet season in April.

In Nepal, the toll from this year’s monsoon – which typically lasts from late June until the end of August – has eclipsed last year, with more than 100 dead.

Last weekend, in the central lowlands, four girls from the one family drowned when they fell into a flooded ditch.

Nepal’s weather department said that heavy rain was expected to continue for another day.

“There isn’t a house without water,” said Raghu Ram Mehta, a resident of the southern district of Sunsari, which has had nine deaths.

“Hundreds of families are taking shelter in local schools.”

Biratnagar airport in the eastern district of Morang was closed after a metre of water fell.

“I have instructed authorities to rescue flood victims, move them to safer locations and provide relief,” prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said on Saturday.