PLEA Network

1 August 2016, The Guardian, World weather: 2016’s early record heat gives way to heavy rains. The record-breaking worldwide heat of the first six months of 2016 has turned to abnormally severe seasonal flooding across Asia with hundreds of people dying in China, India, Nepal and Pakistan and millions forced from their homes. In India, the Brahmaputra river, which is fed by Himalayan snow melt and monsoon rains, has burst its banks in many places and has been at danger levels for weeks. Hundreds of villages have been flooded in Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and other northern states. Some of the heaviest rains in 20 years have forced nearly 1.2 million people to move to camps in Assam. Floods have submerged around 70% of the Kaziringa national park, home to the rare one-horned rhino which was visited by Prince William earlier this year. “The situation is still very bad. We are taking measures to help people in every possible way,” the Indian forest minister, Pramila Rani Brahma,told Reuters. In the state of Bihar, 26 people have died, nearly 2.75 million people have been displaced or affected, and 330,000ha of land inundated. Many major rivers are still flowing at or above danger levels. In China, the summer monsoon which started in June after a series of heatwaves is said to have caused $22bn of damage so far. State officials say it has killed more than 500 people, destroyed more than 145,000 homes and inundated 21,000 sq miles of farmland. Read More here