The death toll from this year’s monsoon climbed to 474 on Wednesday as blinding rains lashed eastern India, according to officials and media reports.
Two more deaths in the past 24 hours pushed the death toll to 13 in drenched West Bengal, officials said in the state capital, Kolkata, where knee-deep flood waters invaded homes and offices.
The city of 16-million people had received 300mm of rainfall since Monday, the weather office said, and warned a depression brewing in the nearby Bay of Bengal was likely to soak the city on Thursday as well.
”Heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected in the next 24 hours,” a weather-department spokesperson said as rowboats ferried food and drinking water to stranded residents across swathes of congested Kolkata.
But the western state of Maharashtra was worst hit, with the latest casualties put at 358, the Press Trust of India reported, quoting the area’s relief minister, Patangrao Kadam.
In adjoining Gujarat province, 14 more deaths pushed up the local toll to 98.
Twenty-seven towns were affected by the deluge, which also disrupted life in state capital Mumbai, Kadam told reporters, although the situation now has improved.
Five rain deaths have been reported from central Madhya Pradesh, other officials said.
State authorities painted a grim picture in Gujarat where 165 people were marooned in worst-hit Patan district, which had received 280mm of non-stop rain since Tuesday, the Press Trust of India said.
About 43 000 people have been evacuated from districts inundated by the rains, which grew heavier in mid-June in Gujarat, said the Indian military, which was readying naval boats for large-scale rescue operations.
In Gujarat, the districts of Amreli, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar and Junagadh were among the worst hit, relief-department officials said, and warned several reservoirs were brimming.
The monsoon rains, which sweep India from June to September, regularly disrupt life and often cause flooding and deaths in the densely populated country of a billion-plus people. — Sapa-AFP