British royals share anguish over Indian rhino park’s floods
GAUHATI, India — More than 100 animals, including 10 one-horn rhinoceroses, have died due to massive flooding at the famed Kaziranga game reserve in northeastern India, prompting Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, to express their concern in a letter to park authorities, officials said Saturday.
“Since the first week of June, we are having no respite with wave after wave of flood that has wreaked havoc inside the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve,” said Kaziranga’s park director, P. Sivakumar.
He said an animal that drowned in a swollen river near the park on Saturday brought the rhinoceros death toll up to 10.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge wrote to Sivakumar expressing their distress about the devastation to Kaziranga National Park and its precious wildlife. The couple had visited the park in April 2016 to learn about conservation and anti-poaching efforts.
“The deaths of so many animals, including one-horned rhino, are deeply upsetting,” they wrote.
The ongoing monsoon has dumped rain across parts of India, Bangladesh and Nepal, displacing 9.6 million people, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, or IFRC.
More than 550 people have been killed in the floods, the IFRC said.
The organization warned of a humanitarian crisis, saying that close to one third of Bangladesh has already been flooded, with more flooding expected in the coming weeks. It said 2.8 million people have been affected, and that more than 1 million are isolated.
In India, more than 6.8 million people have been affected by the flooding, mainly in the northern states of Assam, West Bengal, Bihar and Meghalaya bordering Bangladesh, the IFRC said, citing official figures.
In Bihar, at least 10 people have been killed, the state’s disaster management authority said Saturday.