FlooDs in inDiA kill 96
One million forced to move into relief camps
GAuhAtI (India): The death toll in flooding from heavy monsoon rains in India has climbed past 90, with about a million people taking shelter in government-run relief camps, officials said.
Incessant downpours have damaged swaths of land, uprooted trees and snapped telephone cables in dozens of districts in the states of Bihar in the east, Assam in the remote northeast and Himachal Pradesh in the north.
A total of 96 people have been killed in the flooding in the three states over the past week, according to state officials.
At least 17 rare one-horned rhinos have been killed due to the flooding of vast tracts of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, said Pramilla Rani Brahma, the state’s forest and environment minister.
“Most of the rhinos killed are calves, separated from their mothers during the massive flooding,” Brahma said.
The park had 1.5m-high floodwaters in some places, forcing many of the park’s animals, also including wild elephants, wild buffaloes and boars, to cross a highway to move to higher ground.
Rathin Barman, deputy director of the Wildlife Trust of India, said they were now struggling to feed and care for the rhinos, aged from one to eight months.
“Some of them are injured and are being treated by our staff in the rescue centre. We are right now hand-raising them, providing them formula milk and essential vitamins,” Barman said.
“We will release them only after two years,” he added of the eight.
“We appeal to the public to donate money for the upkeep of the rescued babies. They drink six packs of milk a day which costs 1,500 rupees (RM129) and this will continue for a minimum of one year,” he said.
The heavy monsoon rains have come after two straight years of drought in India.
On Monday, landslides and heavy rains blocked highways leading to Tibet and Manali, a tourist resort in Himachal Pradesh state, with hundreds of people stranded for several hours before rescuers cleared the way, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
In Bihar state, around 260,000 flood victims were taking shelter in more than 400 relief camps set up by the state government.