Features
The Wire
1 MIN READ
The death toll in flooding and landslides that devastated parts of northern India, southern Nepal and Bangladesh over the past few days has risen to 245, while millions of others have been displaced, officials said Tuesday.
KATHMANDU — The death toll in flooding and landslides that devastated parts of northern India, southern Nepal and Bangladesh over the past few days has risen to 245, while millions of others have been displaced, officials said Tuesday. In Nepal, authorities scrambled to send relief supplies to flood-hit areas where incessant rain has flooded hundreds of villages, killing 110 people.
Security forces helped rescue people marooned on rooftops, while helicopters were distributing food and drinking water packets in the worst-hit southern districts. With hundreds of thousands of people affected by the floods, the government was focusing on moving in relief supplies as soon as possible, said Ram Krishna Subedi, a home ministry spokesman. Nepal's home minister, Janardan Sharma, spent the morning at a relief distribution center at Kathmandu's airport to ensure that the aid was reaching all areas affected by the flooding.
Nepal's government has been under criticism for not being able to reach people desperate for help. Across Nepal's southern border, flooding swamped 13 districts in the Indian state of Bihar. Officials said 41 people had been killed, many from drowning, or after being caught in collapsed houses or under toppled trees. Some 200,000 people were temporarily living in the more than 250 relief camps that the government has set up in school and government buildings. Indian soldiers in boats and helicopters helped distribute food packets, medicine and drinking water to people affected by the floods.
Forty-six people were killed in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday when two buses were buried by a landslide in the Himalayan foothills. Another 21 have died in the remote northeastern state of Assam, where soldiers raced to rescue people marooned on rooftops. In neighboring Bangladesh, at least 18 major rivers were flowing at dangerously high levels, according to the state-run Flood Forecasting and Warning Center.
Over the past two days, 27 people have died in the low-lying delta nation, while another 600,000 are marooned, Bangladesh's disaster management minister, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury, said. Around 368,000 people have taken refuge in more than 970 makeshift government shelters, he said. Deadly landslides and flooding are common across South Asia during the summer monsoon season that stretches from June to September.
COVID19
News
4 min read
A daily summary of all Covid19 related developments that matter
Features
6 min read
Here’s what you need to know about the floods and landslides wreaking havoc in districts across the country.
Features
12 min read
For the ordinary residents of Nijgadh, the airport has already come—as the fear and uncertainty that now pervade the everyday, of being displaced and dispossessed
COVID19
News
3 min read
A daily summary of Covid19 related developments that matter
COVID19
News
4 min read
A daily summary of Covid19 related developments that matter
Perspectives
8 min read
The latest volume of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report focuses on climate change impacts on people and places, with urgent lessons takeaways for Nepal.
Features
10 min read
Turning fertile riverbeds into leasehold farms have helped farmers increase incomes but it doesn’t safeguard them from the hazards of climate change.
The Wire
News
4 min read
Geopolitics, globalization, and climate change are affecting yak populations across the Himalayan region