Heavy rains kill 30 in southern India

At least 30 people have been killed because of sudden torrential rains and flooding in southern India, officials said Thursday.

In Hyderabad city, home to top IT companies, nine people were killed when a wall collapsed on them and 10 others died from electrocution and drowning, a local official told AFP.

Dramatic images showed cars being washed away by swirling waters, bridges submerged by swollen rivers and trucks stranded on roads inundated by flooding Wednesday.

Eight members of a family, who were standing in their balcony to watch the rain, were also washed away due to sudden flooding in Hyderabad.

Two of them were found dead and the search is on for the remaining six, the Times of India reported.

Personnel from the army and the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed to evacuate stranded residents.

Weather officials blamed the sudden deluge on a depression in the Bay of Bengal.

Telangana state is the hardest hit area but the flooding has also affected neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

Flash floods kill hundreds of people across India every year, with experts blaming poor construction and warning systems for the fatalities.

Hunt for missing rescue team in flood-hit Vietnam, more rain forecast
Hanoi (AFP) Oct 14, 2020 - A search operation has been launched for a missing rescue team as severe flooding and landslides battered central Vietnam, authorities said on Wednesday, as the country braced for further heavy rain.

Close to a million people have been impacted by heavy downpours and rising waters since mid last week, with more than 200,000 homes flooded, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Thirty-six people are now dead, Vietnam's disaster management authority said, while rescue workers have launched a search for around 30 people missing at a hydropower plant in Thua Thien Hue province following landslides.

The missing include a team of soldiers and officials who had tried to find plant workers who disappeared days ago.

Images on state media showed helicopters and hundreds of soldiers struggling to access the site through thick mud and fallen trees.

Elsewhere across the central region, villages and rice fields were submerged, with relief workers resorting to makeshift boats and canoes to deliver food and bottled water to those stuck in flooded homes.

North central Vietnam was also hit by severe weather on Wednesday as Storm Nangka made landfall.

Forecasters said it could bring further rain in the coming days, while warning another storm was expected to form and make impact this weekend.

The IFRC said it had "grave fears" that the deadly floods would worsen as more rain was dumped on hard hit communities.

"These floods are a double whammy making it even tougher for millions of people already grappling with the economic fall-out of COVID-19 that has destroyed incomes and livelihoods," said IFRC's Hung Ha Nguyen.

Vietnam is prone to natural disasters and is often affected by more than a dozen storms each year, regularly bringing flooding and landslides.

More then 130 people were reported dead or missing due to natural disasters in the country last year, the General Statistics Office said.

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

Floods claim five lives in Vietnam and two Cambodians
Phnom Penh (AFP) Oct 10, 2020
Elderly residents and small children clung to inflatable tyres as soldiers and police used rope lines to get them to safety from rising floodwater on Saturday in Cambodia's western province of Battambang. Hundreds of families in three Cambodian provinces - Pursat, Battambang and Pailin - have been forced to evacuate amid extreme rainfall ahead of the arrival of a tropical depression across the Mekong region. "A two-year-old child and 57-year-old man have drowned in the flood," Seak Vichet, a s ... read more