Floods kill dozens, displace millions

Heavy pre-monsoon rains in India and Bangladesh have washed away train stations, towns and villages, leaving millions of people homeless as extreme weather events, including heat waves, intense rainfall and floods, become more common in South Asia.

More than 60 people have been killed in days of flooding, landslides and thunderstorms that have left many people without food and drinking water and have isolated them by cutting off the internet, according to officials.

The devastation in India’s northeast, one of the worst affected regions, has submerged railway tracks, bridges and roads. In the remote state of Assam, 31 of its 33 districts have been affected by floods, impacting the lives of more than 700,000 people, officials said. At least 18 people have died in the state because of floods and landslides, according to news reports.

At least 33 people were killed in the neighboring state of Bihar by lightning strikes and heavy rain in its 16 districts, Nitish Kumar, chief minister, said Friday.

Climate scientists have said that India and Bangladesh are vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the warm tropical waters of the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, which are increasingly experiencing heat waves. The rising sea temperatures have led to “a significant increase in rainfall,” according to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.

The floodwaters have arrived with fury in Bangladesh, a low-lying nation of about 170 million people. About 2 million people have been affected in the Sylhet region, in the country’s east, officials said.