Disaster

Heavy monsoon flooding kills more than 1200 across South Asia, 41 million affected

South Asia: More than 1,200 people have reportedly died due to flooding and landslides in northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh as intense rainfall has slammed the region for weeks.

According to United Nations estimates, almost 41 million people have been affected in the three countries. Millions of people are displaced from their homes, and the torrential rains have caused damage to tens of thousands of buildings, including houses, schools and hospitals, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

All three countries suffer frequent flooding during the June-September monsoon season, but international aid agencies say things are worse this year with thousands of villages cut off from help and people deprived of food and clean water for days.

In Nepal, 150 people have been killed and 90,000 homes destroyed in what the United Nations is calling the worst flooding there in a decade.

In Bangladesh, at least 134 people have died and more than 5.7 million been affected. The extreme weather has left around a third of Bangladesh submerged underwater.

Government officials in India’s eastern state of Bihar said at least 379 people had been killed over the past few days, with thousands displaced to relief camps away from their flooded homes.

In neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, at least 88 people were killed when floods inundated nearly half of the vast state with a population of 220 million people.

Rajan Kumar, a federal interior ministry official in New Delhi handling the rescue and relief operations, said at least 850 people had been killed in six flood-affected states in the past month.

Various flood relief camps have been set up to provide food and shelter throughout the affected states.

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