By Gopal Sharma and Sumit Khanna
KATHMANDU/AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – A landslide and floods caused by heavy rains have killed at least 41 people in Nepal and India in the past week, officials said on Monday, as the annual monsoon season enters its final stretch after claiming hundreds of lives in South Asia.
Ten people, including four children, were killed after a landslide buried five houses in remote west Nepal on Sunday, a Home Ministry official said.
At least 269 people have died in mostly mountainous Nepal this year in landslides and floods, while another 76 people are missing. The monsoon season that began around June in South Asia ends in September.
In the western Indian state of Gujarat, 14 people have died in the last two days in various incidents related to heavy rains and flooding, said officials at the State Emergency Response Centre.
Rains in Gujarat are 10% higher than the long-period average, according to the local government. The state’s desert area of Kutch received rainfall that was 3-1/2 times higher than the average.
More heavy to very heavy rains are expected in several parts of the state over the next two days, according to the India Meteorological Department.
In Odisha state to the east, floods have killed at least 17 people in the past week, displaced thousands and affected more than half a million people, officials said.
Hundreds have died in the northeastern state of Assam and neighbouring Bangladesh this monsoon.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu and Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad; Additional reporting by Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneswar and Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
