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Damaged houses after heavy
rains in Sultanpur village in Rajkot district of West Gujarat on Wednesday.
(PTI Photo; Image source: hindustantimes.com)
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Heavy early monsoon rains have killed at least 81 people in
India's western Gujarat state, bringing misery to thousands of people uprooted
from their flooded homes, an official said Friday.
Nearly 9,000 people have
been evacuated to higher ground in the worst-hit rural areas of Amreli, Rajkot
and Bhavnagar districts of Gujarat, which had been suffering from a drought
before the rains hit, said Ridhi Butt, a National Disaster Response Force
official.
Butt said most of the
deaths occurred when people were swept away by flood waters and mudslides, or
buried in collapsed houses.
AP/Hindustan Times report continues:
More than 1,000 Hindu
pilgrims have been stranded on the mountain paths leading to Hindu shrines of
Kedarnath and Badrinath in northern Uttrakhand state because of the rains.
The state disaster
response force and police are clearing the roads to restore the pilgrimage, the
Press Trust of India news agency reported.
India's financial capital
of Mumbai was badly hit last week when torrential showers closed trains and led
to a breakdown in public services.
The monsoon rains arrived
days ahead of schedule in the western and northern parts of India, raising
hopes the annual rains may not be as little as predicted by the India
Meteorological Department.
The monsoon has covered
nearly the entire country delivering 24 percent excess rainfall so far,
flooding parts of Gujarat in western India and Assam state in the northeast,
while a swollen river breached its banks in northern Jammu-Kashmir state.
However, the weather
department said it expected a drier July.
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