Monsoon rains in India have already claimed 127 lives – News

The death toll from floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains rose to 127 this Sunday in India and there are dozens of people missing, the authorities reported.

The west coast of the country has been inundated by torrential rains since Thursday and, according to the Indian Weather Service, more precipitation is expected in the coming days.

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Floods and landslides are common during the monsoon season in India, and poorly constructed buildings often collapse after days of continuous rain.

In Maharasthra state, 117 people lost their lives, including more than 40 in a landslide that occurred Thursday in the town of Taliye, south of Mumbai.

Jayram Mahaske told the agency AFP that “many people were dragged away as they tried to flee” when the landslide occurred.

Another resident, Govind Malusare, claimed that his nephew’s body was found but that his mother, brother, sister-in-law and niece were still missing after a landslide caused the collapse of the town. family house.

Within minutes, the water demolished dozens of homes, leaving just two concrete structures standing and cutting off power, residents said. AFP.

In the village of Posare, 210 km south of Bombay, the National Disaster Response Force reported the discovery of four bodies overnight.

In parts of Chiplun, the water level rose to nearly twenty feet on Thursday after 24 hours of uninterrupted rain that flooded roads and homes.

Eight patients at a local hospital treating Covid-19 cases have died after flooding cut off the power supply for ventilators.

The rescuers, mud to the waist, search with bulldozers 100 people still missing in this condition.

In nearby Goa, a woman drowned, the local government reported to the Press Trust of India, in what Chief Minister Pramod Sawant called “the worst flooding since 1982”.

In the coastal plains that encompass Maharashtra and Goa, water levels remain high due to overflowing rivers.

Further south, in Karnataka state, the death toll rose to nine overnight, authorities said.

Electricity was cut in the 11 affected districts and authorities reported crop losses.

Scientist Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology has claimed that climate change is warming the Arabian Sea.

He explained that higher water temperatures cause the air to heat up and retain more moisture, causing extreme rains, he said.

“We have seen a tripling of widespread extreme precipitation since 1950,” Koll told AFP, citing a study he co-authored and published in Nature.

He added that a hill station south of Mumbai, Mahabaleshwar, recorded 594 millimeters of rain on Friday, the highest amount on record.

“In recent years, the impact of climate change (on the monsoons in India) has become much clearer. In fact, what has happened in Europe, China and the rest of the world is similar to what is happening. in India.” .