Floods, landslides wreck life in South Asian nations
Rescuers hunt for survivors as India toll reaches 125; Goa’s floods were its worst in decades, says CM; China cancels flights, moves ships as typhoon approaches; man survives 3 days in flooded garage.
Rescue teams in India struggled through thick sludge and debris on Saturday to reach dozens of submerged homes as the death toll from landslides and accidents caused by torrential monsoon rain rose to 125.
Indian authorities said more than 135,000 people were evacuated and dozens still missing.
Torrential downpours have lashed India’s western coast in recent days, leaving dozens missing near the financial capital Mumbai and causing the worst floods in decades in the resort state of Goa.
“People have lost virtually everything,” said Goa’s Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, pointing out that the state had not seen such heavy rain in half a century.
He said more than 1,000 houses had suffered serious damage in the area as rising waters flooded homes.
Goa’s floods were its worst in decades, according to its Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who said the monsoons had caused “widespread damage” but no casualties, unlike in neighbouring Maharashtra state, where 76 people died.
In Taliye, about 180km southeast of the financial capital of Mumbai, the death toll rose to 42 with the recovery of four more bodies ater landslides flatened most homes in the village, a senior Maharashtra government official said.
Harsh weather has hit several parts of the world in recent weeks, with floods in China and Western Europe and heat waves in North America, raising new fears about the impact of climate change.
“Around 90,000 people were rescued from flood affected areas,” the Maharashtra government said in a statement, as authorities released water from overflowing dams.
India’s weather bureau has issued red alerts for several regions in the state and forecasts heavy rainfall to continue for the next few days.
Meanwhile, Philippine authorities moved thousands of residents in the capital, Manila, out of low-lying communities on Saturday as heavy monsoon rains, compounded by a tropical storm, flooded the city and nearby provinces.
The national disaster agency said about 15,000 people, most of them from a flood-prone Manila suburb, had moved into evacuation centres.
“This situation will be too difficult if there won’t be a permanent solution to flooding, especially now with the threat from the delta variant,” Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro told ABS CBN News, referring to the highly contagious COVID-19 viral strain that has been detected in the country.
Many of the residents were evacuated from flood-prone villages in Marikina overnight, depriving them of sleep, said Teodoro. He blamed years of illegal logging in nearby mountains and heavy siltation in Marikina River for constant flooding in his city.
Airline flights were cancelled in eastern China and cargo ships were ordered out of the area on Saturday as typhoon In-fa churned towards the mainland ater dumping rain on Taiwan.
In-fa was forecast to hit the coast of Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, on Sunday aternoon or evening, the provincial weather department announced.
Schools, markets and businesses in Zhejiang were ordered to close, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It said road traffic would be suspended when necessary.
A man in central China was rescued ater spending three days trapped in a flooded underground garage following torrential rains, while at least four bodies were found ater a traffic tunnel was drained, a news report said on Saturday.
Emergency sirens sounded in the southern Russian region of Sochi overnight ater rivers burst their banks in heavy rain for a second time this month and flooding closed a motorway.
On Friday, floods also hit an area of Russia’s Far East, damaging a bridge on the Trans-siberian railway line partially suspending rail traffic.
A entrepreneur from eastern Germany who raised more than 30,000 euros to help victims of the catastrophic floods that hit western areas last week, arrived in hard-hit Ertstadt on Saturday with machinery to help the clean-up.
Sebastian Frenkel, who oten visits the western Eifel region of Germany that has been devastated, initiated an online crowdfunding scheme to help. Once he had raised enough money, he bought equipment to help the mammoth clear-up effort before seting off with it from Potsdam, near Berlin.