MUMBAI: The death toll from flooding and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in India climbed to 124 Sunday, officials said, with rescuers searching for dozens more missing.
The country’s western coast has been inundated by torrential rains since Thursday, with the India Meteorological Department warning of further downpours over the next few days.
In Maharasthra state, 114 people have been killed, including more than 40 in a large landslide that hit the hillside village of Taliye, south of Mumbai, on Thursday.
Villager Jayram Mahaske, whose relatives remained trapped, told AFP that “many people were washed away as they were trying to run away” when the landslide hit.
It flattened dozens of homes in a matter of minutes, leaving just two concrete structures standing and cutting off power supply, local residents told AFP.
Rescuers were scouring the mud and debris for 99 others still missing.
“My entire team is engaged in rescue operations now,” National Disaster Response Force Inspector Rajesh Yawale, who was coordinating rescue operations in the village, told AFP Saturday.
He said many bodies were washed away, with some found stuck among trees downstream.
A dozen others were killed in two separate landslides, also south of Mumbai.
In parts of Chiplun, water levels rose to nearly 20 feet (six meters) on Thursday after 24 hours of uninterrupted rain submerged roads and homes.
Eight patients at a local Covid-19 hospital also reportedly died after power supply to ventilators was cut off by the floods.
In neighboring Goa, a woman drowned, the state government told the Press Trust of India, in what Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said were the “worst floods since 1982.”
In the coastal plains spanning Maharashtra and Goa, floodwater levels remained elevated after rivers burst their banks.
Terrified residents climbed onto rooftops and upper floors to escape swelling waters.
Further south in Karnataka state, the death toll rose from three to nine overnight, with four others missing, officials said.
Power supply was disrupted in the 11 affected districts and officials added that there were crop losses across vast swathes of land.
Flooding and landslides are common during India’s treacherous monsoon season, which also often sees poorly constructed buildings buckle after days of non-stop rain.
Four people died before dawn on Friday when a building collapsed in a Mumbai slum, authorities said.
The incident came less than a week after at least 34 people lost their lives when several homes were crushed by a collapsed wall and a landslide in the city.
India monsoon death toll climbs to 124 as rescuers search for missing
India monsoon death toll climbs to 124 as rescuers search for missing
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
