In India and China, torrential rains have killed more than 200 people in the past week. Three others died in Pakistan. Widespread flooding has been reported in North Korea near the border with China, with no word on whether anyone has died.
This time of year is monsoon and typhoon season in Asia, and climate change has intensified these storms. Heavy rains have caused landslides and flooding, devastating crops, destroying homes and claiming lives.
Historical data shows that China is having Hotter days and more frequent heavy rains.according to a report released last month by the China Meteorological Administration, which forecasts more of both in the next 30 years.
Governments have launched disaster prevention plans to try to mitigate the damage. Rescuers race to evacuate people before storms approach and deliver relief items by helicopter to isolated areas. China has deployed drones for emergency communications in rain-prone provinces.
Sometimes it is not enough, as the tragic consequences unfolding in Asia demonstrate.
Heavy rains sent torrents of mud and water through tea plantations and villages in the southern Indian state of Kerala early on Tuesday, destroying bridges and toppling houses.
Hope to find survivors has subsided as the search entered its fourth day. Bodies have been found up to 30 kilometers (20 miles) downstream from major landslides.
The area is known for its picturesque tea and cardamom plantations, and hundreds of plantation workers live in temporary shelters nearby. “It was a very beautiful place,” said one merchant. “I used to visit it many times… Now there is nothing left.”
India periodically experiences severe flooding during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September and brings crucial rains for crops.
Typhoon Gaemi was Blamed for more than 30 deaths. in the Philippines and 10 in Taiwan as it hit the western Pacific last week, but was still fatal after weakening to a tropical storm in China.
Rain flooded parts of inland Hunan province for several days. On Sunday morning, a landslide crashed into a family home at a popular weekend spot, killing 15 people.
Elsewhere in Hunan, the bodies of three people, believed to be victims of another landslide, were found on Monday. And authorities in the nearby city of Zixing announced Thursday that 30 people had died in the floods and another 35 were missing.
Another death in China was apparently related to the storm: a delivery driver on a scooter hit by falling tree branches during high winds in Shanghai.
China has recorded 25 major floods this year, the most since it began keeping statistics in 1998, the Ministry of Water Resources said this week.
The tropical storm also generated heavy rain in northeastern China, on the border with North Korea, overflowing the Yalu River, which divides the two countries.
In North Korea, the rain flooded 4,100 houses3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of farmland and many public buildings, roads and railways.
Its state media did not provide information on the deaths, although the nation’s leader, Kim Jong Un, hinted at casualties when he was quoted as blaming public officials who had neglected disaster prevention, causing “casualties that were not can afford.”
Military helicopters and navy ships and other government ships. stranded residents evacuated. State television broadcast footage showing Kim and other officials traveling in rubber boats to survey the extent of the damage. Images showed houses submerged in muddy waters with only their roofs visible.
On the Chinese side, state television showed excavators in rough waters trying to remove debris after a landslide in Jilin province. A city near North Korea asked people living below the third floor to move higher as the Yalu River rose.
In Dandong, a large Chinese city along the river, rescuers evacuated residents in rubber boats on streets turned into virtual lakes. There were no reports of deaths.
Record rains in Lahore city They flooded streets and left at least three dead in Pakistan on Thursday. The deaths in early August were in addition to 99 rain-related deaths the previous month.
Some parts of Lahore recorded 353 millimeters (14 inches) of rain in a few hours, breaking a 44-year record. The rain was so intense that it entered some hospital wards in the capital of Punjab province.
Among the victims were two children, one who drowned in a flooded street and another who fell from the roof of his house.
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The spelling of Zixing City has been corrected in this story.
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