India monsoon death toll nears 700
Pastor Dale Morgan
India monsoon death toll nears 700*
JODHPUR, India, July 9 (AFP) Jul 09, 2007
Twenty-four more people have died in rain-related accidents across
India, taking the death toll to at least 684 since the onset of the
monsoon last month, officials said Monday.
Eight people were washed away in a monsoon-swollen river in Rajasthan,
while 11 perished in rain-related deaths in the central state of Madhya
Pradesh with five other deaths reported in Kashmir and West Bengal.
In the normally arid state of Rajasthan, authorities have been using
helicopters to pluck stranded villagers to safety.
"The airforce is helping us evacuate people from villages which are now
inundated," the state's relief secretary, C.K. Mathew, said in Jodhpur,
adding that 60,000 people have been affected.
Since the onset of the annual rainy season at the beginning of June, the
western coastal state of Maharashtra has taken the brunt of the damage.
The provincial chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, said 385 people have
died in the state, including 106 in the past week, with around 110,000
others affected by flooding.
Communist-ruled West Bengal has also seen four million people hit by
flooding, with around a quarter of them stuck inside their submerged homes.
The monsoon rains, which sweep India from June to September, cause
flooding and deaths every year in the densely populated country of a
billion-plus people.
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