Torrential rains send monsoon death toll rising

TORRENTIAL overnight rains compounded the misery of two million marooned Indian villagers, as the death toll from floods across south Asia rose to at least 289.

Helicopters dropped food and the army helped civil authorities carry out rescue operations.

They also brought aid to hundreds of thousands of people who had escaped to high ground near national highways and railway tracks in India’s Uttar Pradesh and Bihar states last week.

Doctors and paramedics started supplying medicine to people to prevent diarrhoea, skin allergies and other waterborne diseases, said S.K. Gupta, an Indian army officer, who is commanding a unit involved in relief operations near Gorakhpur, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.

At least 39 deaths were reported in Bangladesh and 21 in India over the weekend, raising Bangladesh’s overall death toll to 120 and India’s to 169.

Some 19 million people have been driven from their homes in the two countries in recent days.

The south Asian monsoon season runs from June to September as the rains work their way across the subcontinent, a deluge that scatters floods and landslides across the region and kills hundreds of people every year.

In India, an elderly couple and two of their relatives, who refused to leave their village, were killed when their home collapsed on Saturday night in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

“These four people, all in their 70s, were living on the rooftop of their home,” Surendra Srivastava, a police spokesman. “The Saturday night rains have worsened the flood situation as rising river waters have entered villages forcing people to move to safer places.”

Helicopters continued dropping packets of flour, salt, candles and match boxes to marooned villagers.

Floodwaters were receding in eastern Bihar state where nearly 10 million people in 19 of the state’s 36 districts have been affected.

The weather has cleared, with no rains over the past three days in the state.

The seasonal flooding is expected to ease in Bangladesh this week with monsoon rains weakening.

Major rivers have started receding in worst-hit eastern and central Bangladesh.

Floodwaters have battered 38 out of 64 districts in the delta nation of 145 million people. Low-lying areas around Dhaka were under neck-deep water with many residents were using boats to get around.

The government said it had enough food and medicine to distribute and foreign assistance wasn’t yet needed.