Rescuers in India search for missing after landslides kill 24 in Darjeeling region

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NEW DELHI (AP) — Rescuers were scouring India's northeastern tea-growing hill district of Darjeeling on Monday for missing people a day after landslides triggered by heavy downpours killed at least 24, officials said.

Teams of Indian army and disaster force rescuers were searching for missing people who are feared trapped under mounds of debris, said Udayan Guha, West Bengal state development minister.

Downpours and road damage hampered efforts to reach several affected villages, officials said. Television news showed rescue workers using earth movers to clear the debris.

Landslides triggered by intense rains destroyed homes and infrastructure and left hundreds of tourists stranded in Darjeeling over the weekend. Rainfall also caused two iron bridges to collapse, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said in a post on X.

India’s weather department forecast heavy rainfall in the region until Tuesday.

Cloudbursts, floods and landslides have caused significant loss of life and property in recent months across India. Flash floods swept away an entire village in the northern state of Uttarakhand in August.

Extreme rains this year have caused flooding and landslides across the South Asian region, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Maldives and Nepal.

On Sunday, at least 44 people were killed in Nepal due to mudslides and flooding triggered by severe rainfall. Those killed included at least 37 people in the eastern mountain district of Illam, where whole villages were swept away by landslides.

The weekend’s heavy rainfall arrived at the end of Nepal’s monsoon season, which usually begins in June and ends by mid-September. It also left parts of the capital Kathmandu flooded and caused the cancellation of all domestic flights on Saturday.

In a separate incident, hundreds of hikers were trapped by a snowstorm at tourist campsites on a slope of Mount Everest in Tibet, Chinese state media said. Mount Everest, known as Mount Qomolangma in Chinese, straddles the border between China and Nepal.

Experts say human-caused climate change is intensifying South Asia’s monsoons, which traditionally run from June to September and again from October to December. The rains, once predictable, now arrive in erratic bursts that dump extreme amounts of water in short periods, followed by dry spells.