GUWAHATI: Over the course of the previous four days, severe rainfall in the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya has caused floods and landslides that have killed at least 15 people, officials reported on Monday.
The India Meteorological Department is predicting “isolated heavy rainfall” for several areas of the state this week.
Rainfall classified as “heavy” by the weather service falls between 64.5 and 115.5 millimeters. The deceased include a guy who was killed by a fallen tree, two others whose car was washed away by floodwaters, and seven members of a single family who were buried alive in the South Garo Hills neighborhood.
Sanjay Goyal, commissioner and secretary of the state Revenue and Disaster Management Department, stated, “The situation is better now that the weather has cleared and all bodies have been retrieved.” According to him, 17,000 affected individuals from roughly 165 villages have been moved to relief centers.
Six people lost their lives as a result of flooding in the northern regions of Bangladesh, a neighboring country that borders Meghalaya, on Sunday. Nonetheless, officials stated that things are getting better and the floodwaters are gradually receding because there was no rain during the night.
The district administration of Sherpur, one of the hardest-hit areas, Torofdar Mahmudur Rahman, stated that “people are already starting to leave the shelters and return to their homes.”
Large areas of farmland were drowned by the floods, which also seriously damaged the region’s crops, though the entire amount of the damage is still being determined, he said.
Several sections of South Asia have been damaged by floods during the June-September monsoon season that produced surplus rains this year. At least 244 people, including several children, were killed in landslides and floods in Nepal last week after two days of torrential rainfall washed away homes, highways, power plants, and bridges.
