Kolkata/Bhubaneswar: Heavy rains triggered floods and landslides in eastern India, killing 24 people overnight.
The bad weather was caused by a depression over the east coast and a revival of the June-September annual monsoon rains which had hit a lean patch, leading to a dry spell across large swathes of the subcontinent.
At least 22 people were killed in Orissa and Jharkhand and several were missing in neighbouring West Bengal after torrential rains caused rivers to break their banks and triggered landslides, officials said.
Nine of the 22 died when their country boat capsized in the Kanhar river in Jharkhand, about 135 km west of the state capital, Ranchi.
Two people were washed away in flood waters, 10 fishermen were missing and thousands displaced in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh as hundreds of villages were inundated.
Heavy rains, triggered by deep depression, lashed southern Orissa in which 13 people were killed while 13 others were missing.
Eleven of the deaths had been reported from the Guma block of Gajapati district due to landslides and house collapse following heavy rains, district officials said.
Two women were killed at Anukumba village under the same block when the house in which they were asleep collapsed, the sources said.
The Guma block had received 30 cm of rainfall. Of the 11 deaths in the block, six died as a huge chunk of earth and boulders buried two houses at Jhingirital village located below a hill while three others died due to landslide at Minjiri village nearby.
Navy boats and helicopters had been pressed in to rescue marooned people from rooftops and also to drop food, medicine and water packets, authorities said.
(With inputs from Reuters and PTI)
Comments
0 comment