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 and killed 17 people, officials said today.
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.
"At least 200,000 people were evacuated from their homes and moved to safer places," GV Venugopala Sarma, a revenue official in Orissa, said. He said more people were being moved.
TV stations showed people fleeing the floods with whatever they could carry. Some took shelter on roads and inside school buildings. Most of the deaths were caused by drowning.
The Mahanadi river had breached its banks in several places and floodwaters had swept away highways in some areas.
In Nepal, overflowing rivers originating from the Himalayas washed away homes and inundated dozens of villages in the west, killing at least 17 people and displacing thousands.
Local media reports put the overnight death toll in Kailali, Kanchanpur and Doti districts in southwest Nepal at more than 24 and at least 40 others were missing.
Reuters