Floodwaters render millions homeless in Asia, toll tops 850
Floodwaters render millions homeless in Asia, toll tops 850
Agencies, Guwahati, India/Beijing
Flood waters swept into the largest city in India's northeast on Wednesday and further submerged the Bangladeshi capital as fresh rains in Asia took the rainy season death toll to 853.
South Asia's worst floods in over a decade have killed about 535 people in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal and made millions homeless.
In southern China, mudflows and landslides have killed 10 people in recent days and more rain was forecast, as this year's flood-related death toll topped 300, state media said.
And in Vietnam, rescuers retrieved 18 bodies and widened their search for 16 people still missing after flash floods struck northern areas, state-run television said.
Scores of people in Guwahati, commercial capital of the Indian state of Assam, moved out of their homes after the swollen Brahmaputra river spilled over its banks.
Nearly nine million of Assam's 26 million people are either homeless or marooned, a government official said in the latest estimate of the number of people affected by floods this year.
Hundreds of animals, including rhinoceroses and wild elephants in three of Assam's wildlife sanctuaries, have also perished in the floods that began early this month, a forest official said.
The rains have caused rivers to burst their banks, triggered landslides and forced the evacuation of thousands in India, Bangladesh and Nepal and left thousands more trapped in their homes awaiting rescue.
Fresh rains lashed Bangladesh, triggering flooding in more districts of the capital and the northern parts of the country.
Water levels rose further in Dhaka where at least 1.5 million people have been stranded in submerged low-lying areas. Dhaka has a population of 10 million.
The floods in Bangladesh have left 400,000 people homeless, a government official said.
"It is the biggest flood after 1988, which submerged two- thirds of the country and killed 3,500 people," a disaster management official said.
Heavy rain across southern China has flooded crops, washed away houses and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, the reports said.
In Binyang county in the southern region of Guangxi, which borders Vietnam, mudflows and landslides killed eight people and injured four on Monday, the Xinhua news agency said.
State television showed footage from flooded areas in neighboring Hunan, where people floated down inundated streets in boats and rescue workers plucked others from roofs.
The torrential rains had affected nearly 2.7 million people in northwestern Hunan, state media reported earlier.
Vietnam Television said the latest flood damage report from Ha Giang province reported 13 bodies had been recovered on Wednesday morning. Another five had been found on Tuesday.
"We are trying everything we can to look for survivors," said an official from the impoverished Yen Minh district of Ha Giang, 420 km northwest of Hanoi.
Television footage showed roads washed away and officials handing out money to anguished villagers in the mist-shrouded town bordering China.
Tokyo and Shanghai, meanwhile, were in the grip of ferocious heatwaves.
The temperature in Tokyo soared to a record high of 39.5 Celsius (103 F) on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
And with greenery in Japan's capital making way for ever increasing amounts of concrete, temperatures look set to keep rising year-on-year, a weather forecaster for TV Tokyo warned. The mean average temperature for Tokyo during July is 25 C, according to Meteorological Agency data.
Shanghai, China's financial hub, is to seed clouds as early as next week to try to create rain and cool the searing heat, state media said on Wednesday.
Temperatures in the day in the eastern metropolis have been hitting 37 Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit) this week. The lights have been switched off on the famed riverfront Bund, the government has told 2,100 factories to switch to graveyard shifts, and restaurants were ordered to turn off air-conditioners.