NEW DELHI: Widespread flooding has hit several parts of northern India, officials said, with more thunderstorms forecast for Wednesday as local media reported that 10,000 people were evacuated from the river banks in capital Delhi. The monsoon season in India has been particularly intense this year, killing at least 130 people in August alone in north India, wiping out villages and destroying infrastructure.
The latest round of flooding has hit northern Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab, where the Chenab and Tawi rivers have risen above the danger mark at several spots.
The swollen rivers have triggered landslides and damaged many roads, disconnecting parts of the mountainous regions of Jammu and Himachal from the rest of India.
A woman and her daughter were killed after rains brought down a wall in their house in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, a regional official said.
The India Meteorological Department warned of heavy to very heavy rain in the region on Wednesday, with more downpours expected in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.
The Central Water Commission said the swollen Yamuna had breached its danger mark on Tuesday in Delhi.
Local media reported that nearly 10,000 people had been evacuated to relief camps set up by the government along the main highways as a precautionary measure for those living in low-lying areas. Residents living along the Yamuna in Delhi were evacuated in 2023 as well after floodwaters entered their homes and the river hit its highest level in 45 years.
Many tourist spots in Himachal Pradesh have been hit by landslides in recent weeks, as raging rivers damaged infrastructure.
Three people were killed in Mandi district in the latest landslide, state Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said on Wednesday, and two more were feared trapped under the debris.
Educational institutions were ordered shut, authorities said, asking people to remain indoors due to flood warnings.
In neighboring Punjab, the government said 30 people have been killed and nearly 20,000 evacuated since August 1.
Water gushing through the plains in India’s breadbasket Punjab state has destroyed 150,000 hectares of crops, the government said on Tuesday. Continuous rain prompted authorities to release water from dams, which has caused flooding in plains in India and Pakistan in recent days.
Heavy rain lashes northern India, Yamuna river breaches danger mark in Delhi
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Heavy rain lashes northern India, Yamuna river breaches danger mark in Delhi
- The swollen rivers have triggered landslides and damaged many roads
- The India Meteorological Department warned of heavy to very heavy rain in the region on Wednesday
European leaders expected to cement support for Ukraine amid Washington pressure to accept deal
- After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings
BERLIN: European leaders are expected to cement support for Ukraine Monday as it faces Washington’s pressure to swiftly accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal.
After Sunday’s talks in Berlin between U.S. envoys and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian and European officials are set to continue a series of meetings in an effort to secure the continent’s peace and security in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia.
Zelenskyy sat down Sunday with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the German federal chancellery in the hopes of bringing the nearly four-year war to a close.
Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.
Zelenskyy on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia.
Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace.
The Russian president also has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.
Zelenskyy emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress.
‘Pax Americana’ is over
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”
He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”
“If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned during a party conference in Munich.
Macron, meanwhile, vowed Sunday on social platform X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”
Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.
