NEW DELHI, July 11, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – At least 15 people died in floods and
landslides in India on Wednesday, officials said, pushing the death toll from
the annual monsoon rains pounding the country closer to 200.
Landslides swept at least nine people to their deaths in Manipur in
India’s remote and hilly northeast, said the state’s chief minister
Nongthombam Biren.
“I am deeply saddened to know that nine precious life lost due to
landslide at three places in Tamenglong headquarter,” he wrote on Twitter.
Eight of the victims were children, including several from one family,
local media reported.
Separately, six people were killed in floods and landslides in
Uttarakhand, a Himalayan state in India’s north, officials there said
Wednesday.
Four members of one family were swept away by a landslide and two others
drowned in a river swollen by heavy rain, state emergency department official
Piyush Kumar told AFP.
The arrival of the monsoon, which lasts roughly from June to September, is
heralded by millions of Indian farmers but the relentless rain wreaks death
and destruction every year.
Already 34 people in Assam, another hilly state neighbouring Manipur, have
been killed since May. Nearly 2,000 others have been forced from their homes
by floodwaters.
In Maharashtra in western India, 62 people have died since June due to
flooding and landslides, said the state’s revenue minister Chandrakant Patil.
Another close to 60 deaths have been recorded in the country’s far south
in Kerala since the monsoon hit the Indian mainland, officials said.
At least six others were reported dead in western Gujarat state this week
following days of heavy showers.
Monsoon rain has also pounded Mumbai since the weekend, causing floods
that have interrupted transport services and stranded thousands.
The financial capital floods every year, but in 2005 more than 1,000 people
died when around 950 millimetres (37 inches) of rain fell on Mumbai in just
24 hours.