Monsoon floods spread misery across South Asia

Heavy monsoon rains over the weekend triggered landslides and floods, killing at least 173 people in northern India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Millions of others have been displaced. The rains have damaged bridges and washed away thousands of homes. Soldiers and rescue workers in northern India pulled 46 bodies from buses covered by rocks and mud. Authorities said about 200,000 people took refuge in emergency camps in the state of Assam, northeastern India. Nepali police spokesman Pushkar Karki said rescue crews are still searching for 85 people after area rivers burst their banks and killed at least 80 people. The Nepal Red Cross warned scarcity of food and safe drinking water could trigger a larger humanitarian crisis. “Several villages and settlements are unreachable,” spokesman Libya Raj Poudel told Agency France-Presse. “Telecommunications, mobile phones are still not working, so it is difficult to give a full assessment."