Monsoon Rains Hit India

The June-September monsoon season proved to be quite deadly and damaging this year in India, although the hard impact of heavy rains, which are characteristic to this type of climate, can be observed every year in monsoon countries.

Indian authorities have reported that at least 41 people have been killed following heavy rains that battered the country in the past few days. Some of them were taken away by violent waters that swept through most of the eastern coastal state of Orissa last night, bringing the total death toll in this province and neighboring Jharkhand to 33.

Additional casualties were caused by landslides and flooding, which led to the death of eight people in the Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh states situated in the southern part of the country.

Many people have also been reported missing in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and most of them may as well be added to the total death toll, as Jagadananda Panda, an important relief official in Orissa claimed.

The situation was no better in Mumbai either, the city of 17 million people, where citizens have had to walk through two feet of water for two days now. Officials have warned the population to stay indoors as much as possible, which in turn led to the crash of several businesses, people being unable to reach their offices.

Although the monsoon rains are vital for India's agriculture and thus, economic development, heavy rains kill hundreds of people and ruin the crops, which this year were represented by hundreds of hectares of rice paddy.