New Delhi, India — The tail end of a monsoon spawned heavy rainfalls that killed 25 people in a series of floods, landslides and house collapses during the past 45 hours, officials said Sunday.
Officials in Luck now, 300 miles southeast of New Delhi, said 15 of the dead were killed in the collapse of two old buildings weakened by the unseasonably heavy downpour, official All India Radio and the Press Trust of India reported.
The bodies of 11 of the victims were found in the rubble of an ancient Moslem Mosque which fell onto crowded huts, reports said.
Another five people were drowned in a rain swollen river, three were struck by lightning and two were killed in landslides in Uttar Pradesh state, whose capital is Luck now.
Thousands of cattle perished in the flooding and at least 2,500 people were force to flee their homes, the Press Trust said.
Emergency shelters were being provided for many of the flood victims, it said.
Weather officials in Luck now reported that more than 17 inches of rain fell in Orissa Pradesh and Delhi.
In Orissa, the president of the ruling Congress (I) Party in the state, Nityananda Mishra, was quoted by the Press Trust as saying about $100 million of property had been damaged.
He appealed to the central government for a grant of about $50 million for restoration and relief work, the domestic agency reported.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 20, 1985
