Rains claim another 20 lives in India

Heavy rains have triggered landslides and flooded several parts of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, killing at least 20 people, a government minister said today.

The new casualties, which occurred yesterday, raised the nationwide death toll from this year’s monsoon deluge to 250.

Most deaths were caused by landslides and drowning, while some casualties were attributed to houses that collapsed because of the rains, Orissa’s revenue minister Manmohan Samal said in a statement.