The death toll in flooding from heavy monsoon rains in India has climbed past 90, with about 1 million people taking shelter in government-run relief camps, officials said yesterday.
Incessant downpours have damaged swaths of land, uprooted trees and snapped telephone cables in dozens of districts in the states of Bihar in the east, Assam in the remote northeast and Himachal Pradesh in the north.
A total of 96 people have been killed in the flooding in the three states over the past week, state officials said.
At least 17 rare one-horned rhinos have been killed due to the flooding of vast tracts of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, Assam Forest and Environment Minister Pramilla Rani Brahma said.
“Most of the rhinos killed are calves, separated from their mothers during the massive flooding,” Brahma said.
The park had 1.5m-high floodwaters in some places, forcing many of the park’s animals, which include wild elephants, wild buffaloes and boars, to cross a highway to move to higher ground.
The heavy monsoon rains have come after two consecutive years of drought in India.
On Monday, landslides and heavy rains blocked highways leading to Tibet and Manali, a tourist resort in Himachal Pradesh, with hundreds of people stranded for several hours before rescuers cleared the way, Press Trust of India news agency said.
In Bihar, about 260,000 flood victims were taking shelter in more than 400 relief camps set up by the state government. At least 400 medical camps have been set up as well to aid people who have spent several nights outdoors after their homes were submerged by water.
In Assam, where floodwaters started receding yesterday, about 3.8 million people have been affected by the floods, state authorities said.
More than 700,000 have taken shelter in 770 relief camps.
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