Heavy rains trigger floods in northeast India, killing 11

GAUHATI, India (AP) — At least 11 people have died in floods and mudslides triggered by heavy rains in India’s remote northeast region, officials said Tuesday.

Several railway stations were closed because of floods, said Nazreen Ahmed, a senior official in Assam’s Dima Hasao district. She said nearly 200,000 people in the district were cut off from the rest of the state as roads and bridges were either blocked by landslides or washed away.

The army deployed helicopters to help with rescue efforts.

Officials said four people were killed Monday following heavy rain and mudslides in the region’s frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh. Two others died when their houses on a small hillock collapsed in the state’s capital, Itanagar, and two road construction workers were killed by mudslides at another location.

Seven other people were reported killed in neighboring Assam. The state’s disaster management agency said nearly 700 villages were underwater.

The Indian Meteorological Department forecast very heavy to extremely heavy rain in the region for the next four days.

Landslides and floods are common in India’s Himalayan north. Scientists say they are becoming more frequent as global warming contributes to the melting of glaciers there.

In 2020, flash floods killed nearly 200 people and washed away houses in Uttarakhand state. In 2013, thousands of people were killed in floods there.