Nearly 4 million people in India’s northeastern state of Assam and Nepal have been displaced by heavy flooding from monsoon rains, with dozens missing as deaths rose to at least 189, government officials said yesterday.
The overflowing Brahmaputra River, which flows through Tibet, India and Bangladesh, has damaged crops and triggered mudslides, displacing millions of people, officials said.
More than 2.75 million people in Assam have been displaced by three waves of floods since late May that have claimed 79 lives after two more deaths were reported overnight, a state official said.
“The flood situation remains critical with most of the rivers flowing menacingly above the danger mark,” Assam Science, Technology and Water Resources Minister Keshab Mahanta said.
Assam is facing the twin challenge of combating floods and the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of 33 districts, 25 remained affected after the current wave of flooding, beginning two weeks ago.
In Nepal, the government has asked residents along the southern plains to remain alert as heavy monsoon rains were expected to pound the nation, where more than 100 have died in floods and landslides since last month, officials said.
About 110 people were killed and another 100 injured as landslides and flash floods washed or swept away homes, upended roads and bridges and displaced hundreds of others in 26 of the country’s 77 districts, police said.
A Nepalese Ministry of Home Affairs said the death toll was expected to rise, as 48 people were still missing.
The weather forecasting office in Kathmandu said heavy rains were expected to pound much of the nation in the next four days.
KASHMIR FIRING
In other developments, firing between Indian and Pakistani soldiers along the Line of Control in Kashmir left three members of an Indian family dead and two Pakistani civilians wounded, officials from both sides said on Saturday.
A 50-year-old Indian woman, her husband and their teenage son were hit by a shell in their home as the family was cooking on Friday night in southern Poonch District in India-administered Kashmir, said Rahul Yadav, an Indian administrator.
They died on the spot, he said.
Indian army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand said Pakistani troops attacked Indian positions along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two countries late on Friday.
Anand said it was an “unprovoked violation” of a 2003 ceasefire accord, and said Indian troops “retaliated befittingly,” giving a usual description almost after every such fighting along the border.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that two Pakistani women were wounded in firing in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Friday.
Pakistan had summoned an Indian diplomat to “lodge strong protest” over the ceasefire violations “by the Indian occupation forces along the Line of Control,” the statement said.
The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned “in the strongest terms, the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by Pakistan forces” and called in a senior Pakistani envoy to register New Delhi’s protest.
Additional reporting by AP
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