Flooding eases in India, but thousands still stranded

Flood waters have receded in many parts of western India, but tens of thousands of people remain stranded in marooned villages.

Heavy rains over the past two weeks have swollen rivers and flooded houses, forcing more than 650,000 people from their homes in southern Andhra Pradesh state and the western states of Gujarat and Maharashtra.

In Gujarat, life was paralysed in Surat – a diamond trading hub – after water overflowing from a river submerged most of the city with a population of about 3 million.

Yesterday, a four-storey building in the city collapsed, killing one person and injuring 17 others, the Press Trust of India said. Rescuers evacuated 32 people trapped in the debris, the report said.

But water levels dropped in several rivers flowing through the region after the rains stopped yesterday.

The level of the Godavari River receded slightly in the Nanded area of Maharashtra after days of fury.

It said at least 163 people had died in Maharashtra over the past four days, and 36,750 families were evacuated to safer ground.

Eighty-seven people were missing, said Maharashtra’s director general of information, Manisha Mhaiskar in Mumbai, the Maharashtra capital.

“The situation in Nanded and 178 villages along the Godavari River is now stabilising, because rainfall is now scanty and relief is able to reach there,” she said.

Across India, the rains have killed at least 595 people this year, with most drowning in floods, being crushed by landslides or collapsed houses, or by getting electrocuted.

However, many areas don’t keep accurate death tolls, and the total number of people killed is likely to be much higher.

More than 470,000 people were staying in relief camps in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, that has witnessed widespread losses in the flooding.