India hit by mudslides
2005-07-27 07:33
Mumbai - Monsoon rains triggered mudslides that were feared to have left nearly 130 people trapped or buried in western India, police said, while a report said 62 had died throughout the country in weather-related tragedies.
Rescuers started arriving on Tuesday night in Kondivali village, 150km south of Mumbai, the capital of western Maharashtra state, hoping to rescue nearly 100 people trapped there, said police officer S Jadav.
A mudslide reportedly buried 30 more people in the nearby village of Jui, Jadav said.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that mudslides killed at least 34 people in Kondivali and another 20 elsewhere in Maharashtra.
PTI quoted a government administrator, Sunil Jadhav, as saying eight more were killed by landslides due to rain in the southwestern state of Kerala.
India's monsoon rains, which usually last from June through September, claim hundreds of lives every year. More than 150 deaths have been reported this season.
A heavy downpour since early on Tuesday has disrupted life in Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital, flooding streets and low-lying areas.
Flights could not take off from Mumbai's international airport for several hours on Tuesday, an Air India official said on condition of anonymity.
Hundreds of passengers were stranded in trains, halted when tracks flooded in parts of Maharashtra, Jadav said.
Flooding forced thousands to stay in their offices in Bombay after local trains were shut down. Mobile and fixed-line phone services were disrupted in most parts of the city.
At least 10 workers at a furniture factory were killed when the factory collapsed in heavy rains earlier this week in Dicarpale, a village in Goa state, PTI quoted district administrator JB Singh as saying.
Authorities in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh said they received reports of nine rain-related deaths on Sunday and Monday in different parts of the state. The deaths were caused by drowning, wall collapses and electrocutions, said the state's relief minister, K Dharmana Prasad Rao.
- AP