Kathmandu: The death toll in Nepal’s floods soared to 120 as the disaster caused havoc mostly in the country’s southern plains in the Terai, officials said on Tuesday.
According to Nepal’s Ministry of Home Affairs, 35 people were still missing while 39 were injured in the floods.
As many as 29 of the Himalayan nation’s 75 districts were badly affected by the floods with 80 per cent of its land area impacted and thousands of schools, hospitals and public buildings damaged, Home Minister Janardan Sharma informed Nepal’s parliament on Tuesday.
Nepal has already started distributing relief material to affected people and distributing Rs200,000 each to the next of kin of those killed and Rs10,000 each to families that have lost their homes.
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited the flood-affected areas on Monday and assured that no stone will be left unturned in the government’s search, rescue, rehabilitation and support efforts.
“The government has intensified the rescue and relief efforts by mobilising 26,700 personnel, seven helicopters of Nepal army, six helicopters of the private sector, motor boats and rubber boats,” Xinhua quoted the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying.
The monsoon havoc, which started on Friday, has affected the eastern, central and western regions of the country.
A total of 50,000 houses were submerged across the plains. More than 3,000 houses were destroyed in floods that killed an estimated 400 livestock. Over 22,000 people were displaced by the flood.
The ministry said the death toll was likely to rise though, according to the Department of Meteorology, cloud bursts have stopped since Monday afternoon.
Some media reports in Kathmandu suggested that bodies of seven people swept away by flood waters have been found in India.
The bodies were found near Jogbani Railway station on the Indian side of the border. According to police in Morang district, identities of three Nepali nationals swept away by the raging waters near the Nepal-India border have already been established.
The floods in Nepal have adversely hit the Indian state of Bihar where more than 6.5 million people have been affected and thousands of huts washed away. The floods have also badly damaged buildings, roads, bridges and standing crops worth millions of rupees, officials said in Patna on Tuesday.
The bodies of two Indians have been found in Nepal’s Parsa district and their identities have been established, police said.
Meanwhile, chastened by harrowing failures in relief delivery in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake, the Home Ministry urged individuals and institutions eager to help flood victims to follow the one-window system while distributing relief material.
The ministry has assigned some dedicated areas to collect relief materials from individuals and institutions for effective distribution, it said.
