Monsoon floods kill 3, demolish 200 homes in Assam
INDIA: Floods and mudslides triggered by monsoon rains killed
three people and washed away nearly 200 homes in India's northeast,
leaving some 1,500 people homeless, authorities said Tuesday.
Swirling flood waters and landslides triggered by the rains also
halted road and rail traffic in some districts of the state, cutting
remote areas off from the state's capital, Gauhati, and the rest of
India, said Gautam Ganguly, a government administrator.
The deaths in Assam state bring to 117 the number of people killed in
India since the monsoon began working its way up the subcontinent on May
25, arriving a week before expected. The monsoon season ends in October.
"Three women were buried alive as their houses caved in following a
mudslide on Monday in the village of Chandranathpur," Ganguly told The
Associated Press. The village is nearly 400 kilometers (250 miles) south
Gauhati.
Flood waters from the Madura River washed away about 200 houses at
Hatichara, a tea plantation, forcing workers into three relief camps set
up by the state government.
"I visited the spot and found no trace of the bamboo-walled houses
that had thatched roofs. Up to 1,500 people have been rendered
homeless," Ganguly said.
Authorities were providing the homeless with rice, lentils and
cooking utensils in the relief camps, he said.
The Brahmaputra, one of Asia's largest rivers, flows 1,200 kilometers
(750 miles) across Assam state before emptying into the Bay of Bengal,
and has flooded more than 200 villages across the state since the
monsoon hit the northeast three weeks ago. Nearly 100,000 have been
displaced, the government said.
Gawhati, Tuesday, AFP |