Heavy rains and snowfall trigger landslides and cause building collapses in India's northern Himachal Pradesh.
Bad weather has wreaked havoc over the past three days in India's northern Himachal Pradesh. Elsewhere, rescue workers evacuated some 200,000 people after flooding by one of India's largest rivers killed 16 people at the weekend, while overflowing rivers inundated parts of Nepal. Large parts of India's coastal Orissa state were inundated after authorities were forced to open dozens of sluice gates of a dam on the Mahanadi river following heavy rain in the catchment area. Monsoon rains and flooded rivers have brought huge devastation across South Asia this year, killing more than 1200 people, mostly in India and Nepal.
Helen Long reports.SOUNDBITE: Tsering, President Of The Tibetan Business Association.
) (Hindi) TSERING, PRESIDENT OF THE TIBETAN BUSINESS ASSOCIATION, SAYING: "We depend on these shops for our livelihood throughout the year. There were around 20 shops here and today nothing is left."Monsoon rains have wreaked huge devastation across South Asia this year, killing more than a thousand people, mostly here in India. The hardest hit regions included Bihar, which suffered its worst flooding in 50 years after the Kosi river changed course, submerging several districts of Nepal and India.Water levels are now receding there. But millions are living on embankments, roads and in overcrowded camps in filthy conditions.The monsoon, which arrived in June, is now starting to retreat, leaving in its wake massive destruction and weary survivors to pick up the pieces of their lives and start all over again.Helen Long, Reuters
