Asia’s monsoon misery has spread to Nepal, leaving thousands of people homeless, while more rain is expected to bring further chaos to China’s drowned southwest, where many have already lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones.
Rescuers dropped relief supplies to hundreds of people in Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Friday after days of torrential rain triggered landslides and floods.
About 85 people have died and nearly 8,000 people displaced from their homes in central Sulawesi. A relief official said authorities had not been able to pull out many bodies because of a lack of heavy machinery and equipment.
In China, the toll is far higher, with more than 500 people killed across this country in floods this summer. Meteorologists forecast more downpours.
This year’s monsoon has also caused widespread flooding in South Asia and Indo-China, straining disaster relief agencies.
In Nepal, floods have destroyed crops and disrupted transport and electricity supplies across the country.
Around 2,500 houses have been washed away in the Himalayan nation’s southern plains, forcing residents to flee to higher grounds after week-long heavy rains.
Officials said floods and landslides have killed about 40 people in Nepal since June.
In Bangladesh, monsoon floods continued to spread, inundating vast areas in 30 of the country’s 64 administrative districts.
“Thousands of people have been marooned or displaced. We have opened flood shelters at several places,” said Ibrahim Khalil, an official in Sirajgan district, one of the worst-hit areas north of the capital Dhaka.
But as parts of China battle floods and landslides, others are suffering from a heat wave and drought. Temperatures have reached above 35 degrees celsius over the past 10 days in seven provinces.
The heat is set to compound the drought in the rice-growing provinces of Jiangxi, Hunan and Fujian, where about one million residents faced shortage of drinking water.