Bangladesh, Nepal warn of rising rivers as monsoon toll rises

Dhaka (AFP) – The death toll from heavy monsoon rains across South Asia has climbed to nearly 200, officials said Sunday, as Bangladesh and Nepal warned that rising waters would bring further flooding.

Torrential rains during the monsoon season between June and September trigger floods, landslides and lightning strikes across the region, with hundreds dying every year.

Officials in Bangladesh said at least 67 people had died and another 2.6 million had been affected by swollen rivers bursting their banks and inundating villages over the past two weeks.

“Of the total, 55 people have died from drowning and eight from lighting strikes,” Bangladesh health department spokeswoman Ayesha Akther told AFP.

“The flood situation improved in the last few days. But now rivers are again rising in the north,” the country’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre chief Arifuzzaman Bhuiyan added.

Bhuiyan said rivers were rising in the country’s north after a fresh deluge of rainfall.

A third of Bangladesh is underwater and authorities have warned up to 40 percent of the flood-prone South Asian nation could be inundated.

In Nepal, 79 people have died and 46 are missing after floods and landslides, with the government warning of rising river levels over the next three days.

Floods killed another 45 people across India’s northeastern Assam state in the last two weeks, officials said.

More than 100 animals in Assam’s World Heritage-listed Kaziranga National Park — home to two-thirds of the world’s remaining one-horned rhinos — have died in the floods.

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