Monsoon death toll rises

MORE than 7,200 villages have been inundated and some 176,000 people left homeless by monsoon floods in India’s western Gujarat state, where a dead lion washed up with dozens of other casualties, officials and news reports said yesterday.

At least 131 people have died in Gujarat over the past week, according to figures from the state flood response centre. Most of the homeless in Gujarat are poor villagers who also lost their cattle and belongings.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan, army troops in life jackets used motor boats to help feed and rescue thousands of people marooned by flash floods that have inundated dozens of villages in the country’s North West Frontier province, an official said.