India's floods, landslides toll nears 200 as homes lost

MUMBAI－The death toll from flooding and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in India climbed to 198, said officials on Monday, with rescuers searching for dozens more missing.

The country's western coast has been inundated by torrential rains since Thursday. The India Meteorological Department has warned of further downpours over the next few days.

Flooding and landslides are common during India's treacherous monsoon season, which also often sees poorly constructed buildings buckle after days of nonstop rain.

Experts said climate change has caused the annual deluge to increase in frequency and intensity.

In Maharashtra state, 149 people have been killed, including more than 40 in a large landslide that hit the hillside Taliye village some 250 kilometers southeast of Mumbai on Thursday.

Jayram Mahaske, a villager whose relatives remained trapped, told Agence France-Presse that "many people were washed away as they were trying to run away".

Another villager, Govind Malusare, said his nephew's body had been found after the landslide hit his family's home, but his mother, brother, sister-in-law and niece were still missing.

Houses flattened

Dozens of homes were flattened in a matter of minutes, leaving just two concrete structures standing, and cutting off power.

In parts of the Chiplun city, water levels rose to nearly 6 meters on Thursday after 24 hours of uninterrupted rain. The water levels have since started to recede.

"Rain, floods, water are not new to the people here, but what happened this time was unimaginable and they could not even save their belongings due to the rapid rise of water," Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray told reporters after visiting Chiplun on Sunday.

Eight patients at a COVID-19 hospital reportedly died after the power supply to ventilators was cut off.

"The water level reached the ceiling of my shop, there was so much water inside," said a shopkeeper in an interview with Indian news broadcaster NDTV, pointing to sludge and debris around him.

Some 230,000 people were evacuated across the state amid the torrid conditions. Rescuers were working in waist-deep mud with the help of excavators to search for 100 people still missing.

Climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said climate change was warming the Arabian Sea.

The higher water temperatures were causing the air above to become warmer and hold more moisture, sparking more extreme rainfall events.

"We are seeing a threefold rise in widespread extreme rainfall events… since 1950," said Koll, citing a study he co-authored that was published in the journal Nature.

Chief Minister of Goa Pramod Sawant said the floods were the worst since 1982.

Further south in Karnataka state, nine people died in flooding and four others were missing, officials said.

Agencies Via Xinhua