Floods, landslides kill 15 in India, four in Nepal as rivers rise

By Jatindra Dash and Gopal Sharma

BHUBANESWAR, India/KATHMANDU, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Heavy rain and storms have triggered floods and landslides across parts of India and neighbouring Nepal, killing at least 19 people and leaving 10 workers missing as rivers rose above danger levels, authorities said.

In India’s Uttar Pradesh state, 15 people were killed and five injured over the past 48 hours, while 117 houses were damaged, state authorities said in a statement on Saturday.

Heavy rain and storms affected 63 districts, with the state recording 19 times its normal rainfall in the 24 hours to Saturday.

In Nepal, four people, including three children and a woman, were killed after a landslide buried their house while they were sleeping in Nishi Khola village in Baglung district, Krishna Prasad Acharya, the district’s senior-most bureaucrat, said.

Ten Nepali workers were also missing after an avalanche buried the base camp of the 7,126-metre (23,379-ft) Himlung Himal in the northern Manang district, hiking officials said. The workers had been setting up tents for foreign climbers, who were not present when the avalanche struck.

Nepali authorities warned of possible flash floods in 49 of the country’s 77 districts, with more than half facing high flood or flash-flood risks as water levels in major rivers and tributaries continued to rise.

Shanti Mahat, a spokesperson for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, said Rasuwa and Nuwakot, areas hit by last month’s deadly floods that killed more than 1,450 people and left thousands still missing, should remain “alert” but were not currently considered high-risk areas.

Flooding in the Rahuganga River damaged the structure and transmission-line towers of a 40-megawatt hydropower project, Water Resources and Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said.

“A technical team had been mobilised to assess the damage and restore the project,” he said.

In India, the Central Water Commission said 30 river-monitoring stations across seven states were in a “severe situation”, with water levels between designated danger marks and previous highest flood levels.

Several major rivers, including the Ganga, Gandak, Kosi, Bagmati and Narmada, were above danger levels at monitoring stations.

Floods and landslides also disrupted telecommunications in parts of Nepal after damage to optical fibres and power supplies, Communications Minister Bikram Timilsinha said.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu, Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar, India; Writing by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Jamie Freed)

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