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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but