India has evacuated a thousand villagers from a Himalayan valley on fears a lake in China will burst its banks and flood across the border, officials said yesterday.
The threat of flash flooding comes amid South Asia's worst monsoon flooding in 15 years that has killed more than 1,700 people, mostly in Bangladesh and eastern India.
The lake has formed behind a landslide late last month that blocked the Pareechu River, a tributary of the River Sutlej in Tibet, Indian satellite images show.
China has ruled out controlled blasting of the landslip to allow the water to gradually drain because of the area's mountainous terrain, the officials said.
Eight villages on the banks of the Sutlej in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, around 370km north of New Delhi, have been evacuated and 350 more villagers are threatened by floods.
Power supplies to northern India have been disrupted as one of three power plants at risk from flash floods has been partially shut down.
"About a thousand people living downstream of the Sutlej ... have been moved to safer areas," state Irrigation Minister Vidya Stokes said.
In 2000, a flash flood on the Sutlej killed more than 70 people and damaged around 100 bridges.
State Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said the government and armed forces were keeping an hourly watch on water levels.
Meanwhile, Authorities reported 29 more people killed by flooding and water-borne diseases in India and Bangladesh as deaths blamed on devastating monsoon rains across South Asia rose to 2,047 -- even as waters receded in many affected areas, officials said yesterday. Five villagers drowned on Monday while trying to cross flooded areas in Bakhri south of Bihar state's capital of Patna, Upendra Sharma, a state government official, said yesterday.
An additional 15 bodies also were found floating as flood waters receded in East Champaran, Katihar and Sheohar districts of the state, he told reporters.
Nine more deaths occurred in Bangladesh on Monday from diarrhea and dysentery, the Food and Disaster Management Ministry said yesterday.
Since flooding began in June, at least 1,215 people have died in India, 703 in Bangladesh, 124 in Nepal and five in Pakistan, according to figures supplied by authorities in each country and compiled by reporters. Victims have mostly died from drowning, mudslides and waterborne diseases.
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