China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Wildfires rage in southern Europe
KATHMANDU — Monsoon floods and landslides have killed at least 175 people across Nepal, India and Bangladesh, officials said on Monday. But they fear that figure could rise sharply as rescuers search for dozens believed lost under mud and in submerged villages.
Three days of relentless downpours sparked flash floods and landslides that have killed at least 80 people in Nepal, 73 across northern and eastern India and 22 in Bangladesh.
In Nepal, police said over 48,000 homes have been totally submerged by the floods.
In neighboring India, a massive landslide in the mountainous north swept two passenger buses off a hillside and into a deep gorge, killing at more than 40 people. Aman Anand,
The coaches had stopped for a tea break around midnight on Saturday in Himachal Pradesh when tons of rock and mud cascaded down a mountainside.
Soldiers had managed to pull out 46 bodies from the buses that were covered with rocks and mud.
But more were still missing somewhere at the bottom of the ravine, with soldiers and rescuers working into the night to reach those beneath the mud and rock.
“Around 200 meters of national highway washed away with two buses and more than 50 feared buried,” said Indian army spokesman Colonel Aman Anand, who was helping coordinate rescue efforts.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended his condolences and prayers for those affected by the accident.
“Pained by the loss of lives due to landslide-related accidents in HP’s Mandi district,” he posted on Twitter, using the acronym for Himachal Pradesh state.
The disaster followed days of heavy rain, which loosens the soil on steep hillsides and threatens villages at the foot of mountains every monsoon season.
Hundreds have died across India in torrential rain, floods and landslides since the onset 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 already eclipsed last year, with more than 100 people confirmed dead.
Last weekend in the central lowlands, four girls from the same family drowned when they fell into a flooded roadside ditch.
Heavy toll
Nepal’s weather department warned that heavy rain was expected to continue for another day, following days of torrential downpours.
“There isn’t a house without water,” said Raghu Ram Mehta, a resident of the southern district of Sunsari which has suffered nine deaths, the highest of any district.
“Hundreds of families are taking shelter in local schools.”
Footage aired on Nepali TV showed villagers wading through waist-high water with their belongings and using boats to reach higher ground.
Families perched on trees with young children overnight as floodwaters swept away homes in a village in the southern district of Chitwan, local media reported.
In the popular jungle safari resort of Sauraha in Chitwan, hotels were forced to shift their guests to higher floors as water rushed in.
Officials said they used elephants to rescue about 300 tourists to the nearest open highway and airport to help them return to the capital Kathmandu.
Biratnagar airport in the eastern district of Morang was closed after being submerged in a meter of water, according to authorities at the international terminal.
ATHENS — Hot and dry weather has stoked another round of wildfires burning across southern Europe as firefighters in Greece, Portugal and the French island of Corsica struggled to corral the flames.
Greek authorities voiced suspicions that at least some of the several dozen fires that broke out on both the mainland and the island of Zakynthos over the weekend were started deliberately.
More than 4,000 firefighters were battling more than 250 wildfires in Portugal, which requested assistance from other European Union nations.
On Corsica, fires that have raged since Thursday forced the evacuation of 1,000 people, authorities said.
The latest blaze in Greece started on Sunday in a pine forest and had damaged as many as 20 houses by night in a town north of the capital. Kalamos, about 44 kilometers north of Athens, is a favorite vacation spot for Athenians.
“It was a terrible mess, that’s what it was. You could see homes on fire, people running, people desperate, it was chaos and the fire was very big,” a resident of Kalamos village said.
Authorities said they have shut down a large portion of the local road network as the blaze expanded in several directions, including toward Athens. They also evacuated two children’s campgrounds.
Portugal Civil Protection Agency spokeswoman Patricia Gaspar said the country set an annual single-day record for new fires on Saturday, when 268 separate fires started.
While the weather isn’t helping, nature was responsible for igniting a minority of the blazes, Gaspar said.
“We know that more than 90 percent of the fires have a human cause, whether intentional or from negligence. Both are crimes,” she said.
Greek Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis, who is also the local member of parliament, said of the multiple blazes while visiting the island: “This is planned.”
The fire service said 10 of the 12 fires burning on Zakynthos were still unchecked, with high winds making it difficult to control the flames.
53 blazes a day
A total of 53 wildfires broke out in Greece on Saturday and several more on Sunday, including on the island of Kefalonia, next to Zakynthos.
Authorities said the multiple blazes had stretched firefighting capabilities to the limit. Firefighting planes and helicopters cannot fly at night, adding another degree of difficulty.
Portugal has been especially hard hit by wildfires, including one that killed 64 people in June, during a summer marked by high temperatures and a lack of rain.
Wildfires in Portugal this year have accounted for more than one-third of the burned forest in the entire 28-country EU.
The EU’s Emergency Management Service said the amount of forestland blackened in Portugal as of Aug 5 was about five times larger than the average recorded in the country between 2008 and 2016.
In southern France, fierce flames have ravaged some 2,100 hectares of land since Thursday — with 2,000 hectares burned in Corsica alone.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said there have been no casualties.
Around 200 meters of national highway washed away with two buses and more than 50 feared buried.”
Indian army spokesman who was helping coordinate rescue efforts after a landslide swept two buses off a hillside and into a deep gorge