Tag: flood

Flash floods kill 17 as Turkey reels from multiple disasters

by Dmitry ZAKS ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — Turkish rescuers distributed food and relocated thousands of people into student dormitories Thursday as the death toll from flash floods that swept across several Black Sea regions rose to 17. The torrential rains descended on Turkey’s northern stretches just as rescuers reported bringing hundreds of wildfires that have killed eight people under near total control in the south. Turkey has been grappling with drought and reeling from a […]

Turkish hospital, villagers evacuated in flash floods

ANKARA, Turkey (AFP) — Turkish rescuers evacuated a regional hospital on Wednesday and plucked stranded villagers off rooftops as flash floods and mudslides swept across the Black Sea coast. Officials said one person died of a heart attack in the mayhem and an elderly women was swept away by the rushing water and remained unaccounted for. The health ministry said eight people were also rushed to hospital when a bridge collapsed. “From a meteorological point […]

Floods in Sudan damage thousands of homes

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — Thousands of homes have been damaged in Sudan after torrential rains caused heavy flooding, with many streets in the capital Khartoum deep in water, AFP correspondents said Sunday. Heavy rains usually fall in Sudan from June to October, and the country faces severe flooding every year, wrecking properties, infrastructure, and crops. In Atbara, a city in Sudan’s north-east, the official news agency SUNA reported that a number of houses had “collapsed” […]

Thousands evacuated as floods hit North Korea: state TV

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — More than a thousand homes were damaged and about 5,000 people evacuated in North Korea after flooding caused by heavy rains, the country’s state broadcaster reported, with swathes of farmland also inundated by the deluge. The TV report comes as the impoverished North in June admitted it was tackling a food crisis, sounding the alarm in a country with a moribund agricultural sector that has long struggled to feed itself. […]

Sixteen more killed, dozens rescued in India’s monsoon deluge

KOLKATA, India (AFP) — At least 16 people have been killed and a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes after heavy monsoon rains lashed eastern India, officials said Tuesday, as the air force joined rescue efforts. The latest deaths in West Bengal came a few days after 11 people were also killed in the state as the torrent of water swept away homes and triggered landslides. Flooding and landslides are common during […]

Death toll in central China floods rises to 302, dozens still missing

by Beiyi SEOW BEIJING, China (AFP) — The death toll from floods in central China last month is at least 302 with dozens of people still missing, officials said Monday, after record downpours dumped a year’s worth of rain on a city in just three days. Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province and the epicentre of the record flooding, was hardest hit with 292 people dead and 47 missing, the local government said at a […]

20 dead, 300,000 stranded in flood-hit Bangladesh region

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people including six Rohingya refugees, officials said Friday. The region along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been battered by torrential rain since Monday. “The floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages have […]

20 dead, 300,000 stranded in flood-hit Bangladesh region

  COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people including six Rohingya refugees, officials said Friday. The region along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been battered by torrential rain since Monday. “The floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages […]

Flood-hit Belgians struggle to get over ‘nightmares’

by Anne-Laure MONDESERT TROOZ, Belgium It has been two weeks since the torrents of water trapped Nadia Neqrat on the first floor of a house in Belgium’s eastern Trooz district, and she still has nightmares. Now — with the help of relatives, neighbours and volunteers — she is among the residents trying to rebuild their lives. The devastation from the worst floods here in living memory, which left at least 41 dead in Belgium and […]

Death toll from Henan floods rises to 71 as China braces for more rain

BEIJING, China (AFP) — The death toll from floods in central China’s Henan province rose to 71 on Tuesday as a tribute at a subway where 14 people died was sealed off in a sign of sensitivity to public criticism of the government’s handling of the disaster. Torrential downpours dumped a year’s rain in just three days last week on the hardest-hit city of Zhengzhou, flooding subway cars and trapping more than 500 commuters during […]

India begins landslide, flood clean-up as deadly monsoon rains ease

MUMBAI, India (AFP) — Rescuers waded through waist-deep mud in western India Monday to reach injured residents and start a massive clean-up as the death toll from monsoon-triggered landslides and floods climbed to 198. In the worst-hit state of Maharashtra, rescuers halted search operations in the hillside village of Taliye, southeast of Mumbai, where 53 bodies have been recovered. Local authorities said efforts to retrieve the bodies of 31 others still missing — after a […]

Villagers flee fresh floods in central China as typhoon approaches

by Laurie Chen with Ludovic Ehret in Xinxiang ZHENGZHOU, China (AFP) — Villagers were evacuated over makeshift bridges Friday as floods submerged swathes of central China following a historic deluge that claimed at least 56 lives — while an approaching typhoon threatened to dump more rain on the stricken area. Millions have been affected by the floods in Henan province, which have trapped people for days without fresh food or water and blocked roads as […]