GUWAHATI, India: More than 500,000 people have fled their homes in India’s northeastern state of Assam to escape heavy floods triggered by pre-monsoon rains that drowned seven, authorities said on Wednesday, as they warned the situation could worsen.
One of the world’s largest rivers, the Brahmaputra, which flows into India and neighboring Bangladesh from Tibet, burst its banks in Assam over the last three days, inundating more than 1,500 villages.
Torrential rains lashed most of the rugged state, and the downpour continued on Wednesday, with more forecast over the next two days.
“More than 500,000 people have been affected, with the flood situation turning critical by the hour,” Assam’s water resources minister, Pijush Hazarika said, adding that the seven drowned in separate incidents during the last three days.
Soldiers of the Indian army retrieved more than 2,000 people trapped in the district of Hojai in a rescue effort that continues, the state’s health minister, Keshab Mahanta, said.
Water levels in the Brahmaputra were expected to rise further, national authorities said.
“The situation remains extremely grave in the worst-hit Dima Hasao district, with both rail and road links snapped due to flooding and landslides,” said Assam’s revenue minister, Jogen Mohan, who is overseeing relief efforts there.
Cities elsewhere in India, notably the capital, New Delhi, are broiling in a heat wave.
Half a million Indians flee floods in northeast brought by rain
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Half a million Indians flee floods in northeast brought by rain
- One of the world’s largest rivers, the Brahmaputra, burst its banks in Assam over the last three days, inundating more than 1,500 villages
Nepal’s rapper politician who took on the old guard and won
- Shah’s victory over the veteran Marxist leader marks one of the most symbolic results of Nepal’s high-stakes parliamentary election
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s rapper-turned-mayor Balendra Shah won a dramatic parliamentary contest on Saturday, defeating veteran leader KP Sharma Oli in the former prime minister’s own constituency after staking his political future on the challenge.
Shah’s victory over the veteran Marxist leader marks one of the most symbolic results of Nepal’s high-stakes parliamentary election, held six months after mass anti-corruption protests toppled the government.
His win caps a bold gamble by the 35-year-old reformist, who resigned as Kathmandu mayor to challenge Oli, the 74-year-old four-time premier, in his own stronghold.
Shah had taken an unassailable lead on Saturday, according to Election Commission figures.
He will become prime minister if his Rastriya Swatantra Party party secures a parliamentary majority, as Election Commission trends on Saturday put it on course to do.
Better known as Balen, the sharply dressed 35-year-old has emerged as a symbol of youth-driven political change.
Born in Kathmandu in 1990, he was a schoolboy during Nepal’s 1996-2006 Maoist civil war, which killed thousands and eventually ended the monarchy.
Shah trained as a civil engineer but first gained national attention through Nepal’s underground hip-hop scene, releasing songs that railed against corruption and inequality.
Those themes, he says, still guide his politics.
“If a person involved in politics also engages in literature or music, it becomes emotionally driven,” said Shah during his campaign for Thursday’s elections in the Himalayan nation of 30 million people.
“We also need to nurture the emotional aspect of our lives, and a politician should possess that sensitivity.”
