News Photos
Search Advanced Sign in / Register fans
 
WORLD NEWS    
 

Advertisement

Heavy rains pound India; 163 killed over 4 days
By BISWAJEET BANERJEE
Associated Press
2008-09-23 03:30 PM
Heavy rains continued to lash northern and eastern India with 44 people reported killed over the past 24 hours as authorities rushed Tuesday to rescue hundreds of thousands trapped in their homes.

The latest reported deaths brought the toll of those killed by monsoon flooding to 163 over the last four days.

Most of the dead were from India's most populous northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where 32 people were killed by drowning, house collapses and electrocution since Monday, as most rivers in the state spilled their banks, state relief commissioner G.K. Tandon said Tuesday.

Another 70 people were killed over the weekend in the state and floods forced 200,000 people to flee their homes, Tandon said. The state government set up more than 2,000 relief camps across Uttar Pradesh to house the flood survivors.

In eastern Orissa state, the death toll over the last four days from heavy rains and flooding rose to 29 Tuesday morning, said chief secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathi. On Monday 17 people were reported to have died.

Authorities evacuated nearly 285,000 people since Friday and put them in 261 state-run relief camps, Tripathi told The Associated Press. Officials were trying to reach an addition 200,000 stranded villagers.

More rain is expected over the next few days and the state government has called in help from the Indian navy, Tripathi said, adding about 650 villages were inundated.

Three Indian air force helicopters were dropping food packages to stranded villagers and 1,300 motor and row boats were rescuing people in the worst hit districts.

Incessant monsoon precipitation caused the Mahanadi river to breach its banks in several places, causing the worst flooding in 26 years in Orissa state.

Another 32 people died in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh over the weekend, most buried by mudslides triggered by heavy rains, news reports said.

The latest floods came just a month after the monsoon-swollen Kosi river, a Ganges tributary that flows from Nepal to India, burst its banks and submerged nearly 1,000 villages in the impoverished northern Indian state of Bihar, killing at least 48 people and driving more than 1 million others from their homes.

The annual monsoon season, which runs from June to September, brings rains that are vital to agriculture in South Asia but also can cause massive destruction.

 
Have Your Say :

We welcome your comments on this and other stories. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Please provide your full name and suburb/location. We also require a working e-mail address – not for publication, but for verification only.

 
Post your feedback
 
 
 
More WORLD News Stories
Dog sleds, raw seal meat and biting cold await G-7 finance ministers   2010-02-05
Toyota says Prius had brake design problems   2010-02-05
Haiti business community seeks to help rebuild economy   2010-02-05
As Toyota troubles mount, Congress wants answers   2010-02-05
Google, U.S. intel to team up to fight cyberattacks   2010-02-05
Deutsche Bank bounces back with strong 2009 profit   2010-02-05
U.S. stocks take breather after two-day rally   2010-02-05
U.S. dollar little changed in Asia   2010-02-05
Asian stocks drop after Wall Street resumes slide   2010-02-05
Oil prices down in Asian trade, stay above US$76   2010-02-05
Child slavery in Haiti is common and legal   2010-02-05
Sri Lanka leader says Tamils should work with gov't   2010-02-05
Pandas leave U.S. for new homes in China   2010-02-05
Talks unlikely   2010-02-05
Cambodia to draft new law against acid attacks   2010-02-05
Oil discovery   2010-02-05
Obama's aunt readies fresh fight   2010-02-05
Speedy vehicle plows into Nevada casino; 2 dead, 8 hurt   2010-02-05
Suns end Nuggets hot home form   2010-02-05
Milito gives Inter slight advantage   2010-02-05
 
01     02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   Next   >
 
To search for articles form the past seven days, Click on ARCHIVES
  7day free
 
 
TOP

©2009 Taiwan News All Rights Reserved.