At least 950 killed in Asian monsoon
Close to 40 million affected by floods
PATNA, India — Devastating floods triggered by seasonal monsoon rains have killed more than 950 people and affected close to 40 million across northern India, southern Nepal and northern Bangladesh, officials said Thursday.
The rains have led to wide-scale flooding in a broad arc stretching across the Himalayan foothills in the three countries, causing landslides, damaging roads and electric towers and washing away tens of thousands of homes and crops.
The northern Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam in the remote northeast are the worst hit, accounting for 680 deaths, most of them from drowning, snake bites or landslides.
South Asia’s monsoon rains run from June to September.
Disaster management authorities in Bihar said the state’s death toll of 367 could go up further as floodwaters recede and bodies are recovered from submerged houses.
Army soldiers and volunteers have evacuated around 770,000 people from inundated areas. Of these, some 425,000 were living in 1,360 relief camps set up in school and government buildings, said Avinash Kumar, a Bihar state official. was bracing for the threat of infections
In neighboring Uttar as floodwaters recede. Pradesh, the state government Health workers have begun said around 2.3 million sending supplies of mosquito people in 25 districts repellent, bleaching have been affected by the powder and water purification floods when at least three tablets to the worst-hit major rivers overflowed areas, said health official their banks, entering fields Badri Vishal. and homes. In the eastern state of
An Uttar Pradesh government West Bengal, the top elected spokesman official, Chief Minister blamed the unprecedented Mamata Banerjee, said 152 flooding on the release of people had died and 15 million water from dams in upstream had been affected by Nepal. floods in the past few weeks.
Army troops have been Another 71 people were helping to evacuate people killed in Assam as rivers marooned on rooftops or breached their banks and trees, while air force helicopters entered low-lying villages. dropped packets of At the renowned Kaziranga food, drinking water and National Park, officials said medicines to those camping around 300 animals, including on higher ground, mostly around two dozen rhinos along highways. and a Royal Bengal tiger,
Meanwhile, the state administration have been killed after floodwaters submerged nearly 80 percent of the wildlife park.
In neighboring Bangladesh, the death toll climbed to 132 while some 7.5 million people have been affected in this year’s floods, according to the Disaster Management Ministry.
Crops on more than 24,710 acres of land have been washed away while another 1,482,600 acres have been damaged, posing a serious threat to food production, the ministry said Thursday.
The U.N. World Food Program said that Bangladesh was at risk of “devastating hunger” after major floods that destroyed crops, homes and livelihoods of people across many impoverished areas in a delta nation of 160 million people.