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Third woman breaches ban at Indian Hindu temple amid protests

Protesters scuffle with police during a protest against state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter the Sabarimala temple, in New Delhi, India, January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

KOCHI, India (Reuters) – A woman aged 46 has become the third to enter the Sabarimala Hindu temple in south India in defiance of an ancient ban on females of menstruating age, the office of the chief minister of Kerala state said on Friday.

It was not immediately clear how the woman, a Sri Lankan, had got in, and the temple management denied that she had in fact entered.

The hill temple, which pays homage to the celibate god Ayyappan and draws millions of worshippers a year, is one of a few in India that bar entry to girls and women between the ages of 10 and 50, saying that menstruating women are impure.

Conservative Hindu groups shut businesses and halted transport across Kerala on Thursday with a protest strike against the communist state government, which backs a Supreme Court ruling in September that ordered the lifting of the ban.

The first two women to breach the ban arrived in an ambulance with a plainclothes police escort on Wednesday and went in through a side gate without any devotees noticing.

VISITS BLOCKED

The chief minister’s office said the third had gone to the temple with her husband, and had been offered police protection.

Media identified her as Sasikala and reported that she had had her womb removed, which would mean she cannot menstruate. They said she had gone in at about 10:55 p.m. on Thursday.

The temple has refused to abide by the court ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit had been blocked by thousands of devotees. It says the ban is necessary because menstruating women are impure, and denied that another woman had visited.

“The chief minister’s office is lying,” said Ayyappa Dharma Sena leader of the temple and grandson of former chief priest Rahul Easwar. “The pictures of the Sri Lankan woman Sasikala being shown in the media are fake.”

The protests against Kerala’s communist coalition, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, were backed by both of the main national parties – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Congress party. A general election is due by May.

On Friday, only small protests were reported from across the state. Fewer than 100 members of the Congress youth wing marched and shouted slogans against the chief minister in the city of Kochi.

In some parts of South Asia, menstruating women are commonly forbidden to enter houses or temples or take part in festivals and community events.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Jose Devasia in KOCHI; Editing by Martin Howell and Kevin Liffey)

Protests paralyze Indian state after women defy temple ban

Supporters of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu nationalist organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) attend a protest rally during a strike against the state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter the Sabarimala temple, in Kochi, India, January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Sivaram V

By Sudarshan Varadhan and Neha Dasgupta

KOCHI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Conservative Hindu groups paralyzed India’s southern state of Kerala on Thursday protesting against the state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter a Hindu temple.

Many small businesses were shut after the groups called for a state-wide stoppage. Most bus services were halted and taxis were refusing to take passengers as some drivers said they feared they would be attacked.

Some protesters burst makeshift bombs outside a police station in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram, police said.

On Thursday morning, about 400 protesters – including some women – marched towards the main city junction in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, to stage a sit-in, shouting slogans and waving flags, with streets otherwise deserted.

They were backed by officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP.

India’s Supreme Court in September ordered the lifting of the ban on women of menstruating age entering the Sabarimala hill temple, which draws millions of worshippers a year.

The temple has refused to abide by the ruling and subsequent attempts by women to visit have been blocked by thousands of devotees.

On Wednesday, two women were escorted by police into the temple through a side gate. They offered prayers from the top of a staircase where they could see the deity below without drawing the attention of the priest or other devotees, a police official familiar with the operation said.

He did not wish to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The Kerala state government is run by left-wing parties and has sought to allow women into the temple, a position that has drawn criticism from both of India’s main political parties, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.

Policemen wear riot gear before the start of a rally during a strike called by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to protest against state government for allowing two women to defy an ancient ban and enter the Sabarimala temple, in Kochi, India, January 3, 2019. REUTERS/Sivaram V

BUSES DAMAGED

The state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told reporters women were the target of some attacks by protesters, including women journalists covering the event.

On Wednesday, a woman police constable was molested by five protesters near Kochi, while a protester was pelted with stones and killed in a southern district of the state, police said.

The protests on Thursday remained largely peaceful, Vijay Sakhare, Inspector General of Police Kochi Range, told Reuters.

Since Wednesday, police have arrested more than 700 people and taken more than 600 protesters into preventive custody, V.P. Pramod Kumar, deputy director, public relations, state police headquarters, told Reuters. He said police had riot gear, teargas and water cannons in case protests became unruly.

In several places protesters damaged state-run buses, Kumar said.

A majority of stores in one of the busiest markets in Kochi remained shut even after protesters dispersed in the evening, according to M.C.K Jaleel, the state joint secretary of Kerala Samsthana Vyapari Vyavasayi Samithi, one of the largest merchant associations in the city.

DEFIANCE BY STEALTH

The women, Bindu Ammini, 42, and Kanaka Durga, 44, had approached state police to find a way to enter the temple after a failed attempt on Dec. 24.

For more than a week before Wednesday’s visit, the women were under police protection at an undisclosed location, unknown even to their families, to prevent the plan from leaking out, the police official said.

In the early hours of Wednesday, the police took the two women to the hill temple inside an ambulance to avoid attention. Medical services are frequently used outside the temple to help the elderly who go on the trek, the official said.

After offering prayers, the women merged with the crowd and headed to the exit, accompanied by four police in plain clothes, the police official said.

“Every minute, about 100 devotees throng to the sanctum sanctorum and there was no way the priest would have noticed these two,” he said.

Several women turned away by devotees in previous attempts to enter the temple said they had faced a backlash.

Bindhu Thankam Kalyani, 43, a teacher in Kerala, who tried to enter Sabarimala in October, said she was harassed by protesters. “They would come to my school and intimidate me,” she said.

However, some women who support the ban have criticized the women, saying they were defying religious tradition.

“We have been taught from our childhood that women should not go,” said Saritha C. Nair, 35, an entrepreneur.

(Additional reporting by Jose Devasia; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

American killed on remote Indian island off-limits to visitors

FILE PHOTO: A Sentinel tribal man aims with his bow and arrow at an Indian Coast Guard helicopter as it flies over the island for a survey of the damage caused by the tsunami in India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, December 28, 2004. REUTERS/Indian Coast Guard/Handout

By Sanjib Kumar Roy

PORT BLAIR (Reuters) – An American visiting one of the islands in India’s remote cluster of Andaman and Nicobar has been killed by a group of hunter-gatherers who live there isolated from the outside world, two police officials said on Wednesday.

The North Sentinel Island is out of bounds for visitors, and is home to the Sentinelese community, who allegedly killed the American, identified as John Allen Chau after he was illegally ferried there by fishermen, the officials added.

“A murder case has been registered,” one of the officials told Reuters. Both officials sought anonymity as they are not authorized to speak to the media.

In a statement late on Tuesday, Deepak Yadav, a senior police officer, said authorities in the island chain in the Bay of Bengal had launched an investigation.

The investigation began after police were contacted by the United States consulate in the southern city of Chennai, which has been in touch with Chau’s mother, the statement said.

“We are aware of reports concerning a U.S. citizen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands,” a consulate spokeswoman said in an email.

“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,” she added but declined to provide further details over privacy concerns.

One of the police sources told Reuters Chau was a preacher who had visited the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the past. Police have learned he had a strong desire to meet the Sentinelese and preach on the island, the source added.

Reuters was unable to confirm if Chau planned to preach on the island, and was not immediately able to trace contact details for his family or a representative.

One police source told Reuters Chau hired a fishing dinghy and, aided by the fishermen, reached the vicinity of the island on Nov. 16, before transferring to a canoe.

His body, spotted the following day by the fishermen on their return, has not yet been retrieved, the official said, adding that the fishermen who took him there had been arrested.

North Sentinel Island is about 50 km (31 miles) west of Port Blair, the capital of the island cluster.

In 2006, two fishermen, whose boat strayed onto the 60-sq-km (23-square-mile) island, were killed and their bodies never recovered.

An Indian Coast Guard helicopter sent to retrieve the bodies was repelled by a volley of arrows from the community, believed to be the last pre-Neolithic tribe in the world.

(Reporting by Sanjib Kumar Roy; Writing by Euan Rocha; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Cyclone ‘Gaja’ makes landfall in south India, kills 11 people

The aftermath of cyclone Gaja is seen in Tamil Nadu, India November 16, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. SHABBIR AHMED/via REUTERS

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A cyclone made landfall in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on Friday, killing at least 11 people, uprooting trees and knocking down electricity poles after more than 80,000 people were moved out of its path to safety, officials said.

The aftermath of cyclone Gaja is seen in Tamil Nadu, India November 16, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. SHABBIR AHMED/via REUTERS

Cyclone “Gaja” made landfall in the early hours of Friday but then weakened as it moved inland, K. J. Ramesh, director general of the state-run India Meteorological Department, told Reuters.

Eleven people were known to have been killed, said an official from the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority.

The state government has set up more than 470 relief camps and had evacuated more than 80,000 people from their homes in vulnerable areas, said the official who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to media.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced compensation of 1 million rupees ($14,000) for the families of those killed.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. ratchets up pressure on Iran with resumption of sanctions

FILE PHOTO: Iranian rials, U.S. dollars and Iraqi dinars are seen at a currency exchange shopÊin Basra, Iraq November 3, 2018. REUTERS/Essam al-Sudani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States reimposes oil and financial sanctions against Iran on Monday, significantly turning up the pressure on Tehran in order to curb its missile and nuclear programs and counter its growing military and political influence in the Middle East.

The move will restore U.S. sanctions that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by the administration of President Barack Obama, and add 300 new designations in Iran’s oil, shipping, insurance and banking sectors.

President Donald Trump announced in May that his administration was withdrawing from what he called the “worst ever” agreement negotiated by the United States. Other parties to the deal, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, have said they will not leave.

Details of the sanctions will be released at a news conference scheduled for 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT) with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

China, India, South Korea, Japan and Turkey – all top importers of Iranian oil – are among eight countries expected to be given temporary exemptions from the sanctions to ensure crude oil prices are not destabilized.

The countries will deposit Iran’s revenue in an escrow account, U.S. officials have said.

Washington has said it will ensure a well-supplied global oil market, with help from ally Saudi Arabia, as Iran oil is cut back. Front-month Brent crude futures, the international benchmark for oil prices, were at $72.53 per barrel on Monday.

The reimposition of the sanctions comes as the United States is focused on U.S. congressional and gubernatorial elections on Tuesday. Campaigning in Chattanooga, Tennessee, late on Sunday, Trump said his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran was working.

“Iran is a much different country than it was when I took office,” said Trump, adding: “They wanted to take over the whole Middle East. Right now they just want to survive.”

Earlier, thousands of Iranians chanted “Death to America” at a rally to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday that Iran should implement policies to safeguard its macroeconomic stability in the face of sanctions.

Senior Iranian officials have dismissed concerns about the impact to its economy.

“America will not be able to carry out any measure against our great and brave nation … We have the knowledge and the capability to manage the country’s economic affairs,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi told state TV on Friday.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Rescue teams searching rubble after flyover collapses in Kolkata

Firefighters and rescue workers search for victims at the site of a bridge that collapsed in Kolkata, India September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri

By Subrata Nagchoudhury

KOLKATA (Reuters) – Rescue workers were working to see if anyone was trapped in the debris after a bridge collapsed on Tuesday in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata, government officials said.

Cars were seen among the rubble and a large portion of the bridge was destroyed, but as yet it was not known if there were casualties.

“We are trying to assess if there are people trapped beneath the debris,” Sovan Chatterjee, the mayor of Kolkata, who visited the accident site, told Reuters.

Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal state, said in a televised address: “We are still assessing the gravity of the situation and we cannot talk about the deaths right now.”

All India Trinamool Congress, the West Bengal state’s ruling party, said on Twitter the bridge was 40 years old.

There were no more immediate details of the cause of the collapse.

In March 2016, another bridge collapsed in the city, killing more than two dozen people.

(Writing by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Mayank Bhardwaj and Alison Williams)

China defies U.S. pressure as EU parts ways with Iranian oil

A gas flare on an oil production platform in the Soroush oil fields is seen alongside an Iranian flag in the Persian Gulf, Iran, July 25, 2005. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/File Photo

By Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan

BEIJING/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – China, seeking to skirt U.S. sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country’s crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France’s Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.

The United States is trying to halt Iranian oil exports in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement and to curb its influence in the Middle East.

China, which has cut imports of U.S. crude amid a trade war with Washington, has said it opposes unilateral sanctions and defended its commercial ties with Iran.

On Monday, sources told Reuters Chinese buyers of Iranian oil were beginning to shift their cargoes to vessels owned by National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC) for nearly all their imports.

The shift demonstrates that China, Iran’s biggest oil customer, wants to keep buying Iranian crude despite the sanctions, which were reimposed after the United States withdrew in May from a 2015 agreement to halt Iran’s nuclear program.

“The shift started very recently, and it was almost a simultaneous call from both sides,” said one source, a senior Beijing-based oil executive, who asked not to be identified as he is not allowed to speak publicly about commercial deals.

Tehran used a similar system between 2012 and 2016 to circumvent Western-led sanctions, which had curtailed exports by making it virtually impossible to obtain shipping insurance for business with Iran.

Iran, OPEC’s third-largest oil producer, relies on sales of crude to China, Japan, South Korea, India and the EU to generate the lion’s share of budget revenues and keep its economy afloat.

The United States has asked buyers of Iranian oil to cut imports from November. Japan, South Korea, India and most European countries have already slashed operations.

French oil major Total, previously one of the biggest European buyers of Iranian oil, has said it had no choice but to halt imports and abandon Iranian projects to safeguard its operations in the United States.

On Monday, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Total had officially left Iran’s South Pars gas project.

Total later confirmed it had notified the Iranian authorities of its withdrawal from South Pars after it failed to obtain a waiver from U.S. sanctions.

Iranian officials had earlier suggested China’s state-owned CNPC could take over Total’s stake and Zanganeh said the process to replace the French company was under way.

“As for the future of Total’s share, we have not been informed of an official CNPC position, but as we have always said, CNPC, a Chinese state-owned company, has the right to resume our participation if it decides so,” Total said in an emailed statement.

WALK AWAY

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called for safeguarding the Iranian nuclear deal and defended the interests of EU companies in Iran.

But most European companies have conceded that they would be forced to walk away from Tehran for fear of sanctions and losing access to operations that require U.S. dollars.

The first round of U.S. sanctions, which included cutting off Iran and any businesses that trade with it from the U.S. financial system, went into effect on Aug. 7.

A ban on Iranian oil purchases will start in November. Insurers, which are mainly U.S.- or European-based, have begun winding down their Iranian business to comply with the sanctions.

To safeguard their supplies, state oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp and Sinopec Group, Asia’s biggest refiner, have activated a clause in long-term supply agreements with National Iranian Oil Corp (NIOC) that allows them to use NITC-operated tankers, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The price for oil under the long-term deals has been changed to a delivered ex-ship basis from the previous free-on-board terms, meaning Iran will cover all costs and risks of delivering the crude as well as handling the insurance, they said.

In July, all 17 tankers chartered to carry oil from Iran to China were operated by NITC, according to shipping data on Thomson Reuters Eikon. In June, eight of 19 vessels chartered were Chinese-operated.

Last month, those tankers loaded about 23.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate destined for China, or about 767,000 barrels per day (bpd). In June, the loadings were 19.8 million barrels, or 660,000 bpd.

In 2017, China imported an average of 623,000 bpd, according to customs data.

Sinopec declined to comment. A spokesperson for Nam Kwong Group, the parent of Zhenrong, declined to comment.

NIOC did not respond to an email seeking comment. An NITC spokesman said it would forward a request from Reuters for a comment to the country’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.

It was not immediately clear how Iran would provide insurance for the Chinese oil purchases, worth some $1.5 billion a month. Insurance usually includes cover for the oil cargoes, third-party liability, and pollution.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara and Cyril Altmeyer in Paris; Writing by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Death toll nears 400 in India’s flood-hit Kerala, dozens missing

Flood-affected women wait in a queue to receive relief material at a camp in Chengannur in the southern Indian state of Kerala, India, August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Amit Dave

By Malini Menon and Sudarshan Varadhan

KOCHI/NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) – The death toll in India’s southern state of Kerala rose on Monday to nearly 400 after its worst flood in a century, as authorities handed out medicine and disinfectants to ward off disease in thousands of relief camps.

Dozens of people are missing and 1.2 million are sheltering in the camps, state officials said, as water receded and a huge clean-up gathered pace.

“The death toll has risen to 373,” an official of the state’s disaster management authority told Reuters.

Kerala received rainfall more than 40 percent greater than normal for the monsoon season, which runs from June to September. Torrential rain in the last 10 days forced officials to release water from dozens of dangerously full dams.

The Indian government classified the floods as a “calamity of severe nature.” Kerala has pitched it as a national disaster, which if accepted by the federal government, is likely to prompt greater commitments of funds for relief and rebuilding efforts.

But, without a yardstick for such a declaration, it could be an uphill task, state officials involved with disaster management said.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called the flood one of the worst in India’s history, displacing more than half a million people.

Federal health minister J.P. Nadda said more than 3,500 medical camps were set up across a region roughly the size of Switzerland, where rains since Aug. 8 have swelled rivers and triggered landslides.

“There is a requirement for 90 different medicines and the first installment has reached,” he added.

“The biggest challenges immediately ahead are cleaning of the flood-hit houses, rehabilitation, and prevention of water-borne diseases,” said Mahesh P., a village official in Rayamangalam, about 45 km (28 miles) from Kerala’s financial capital of Kochi.

Mahesh oversees four relief camps in his village, which itself escaped flood damage. The camps accommodate people rescued from neighboring areas, which were among the worst affected.

The villagers had all pulled together to rescue people and prevent an even bigger disaster, Mahesh said.

“The flood has bonded the people like never before, sharing whatever they had.”

Chlorine powder to disinfect water and other cleaning material are distributed by the camps Mahesh oversees, along with a basic survival kit consisting of a five-day supply of rice and food, toiletries and clothing.

A doctor examines a flood-affected woman inside a relief camp in Chengannur in the southern Indian state of Kerala, India, August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Amit Dave

LONG QUEUES

Light to moderate rain was expected across Kerala on Monday, promising respite to rescue workers, who have battled rising waters and mudslides to reach tens of thousands of stranded villagers.

In one of the worst-hit areas, Chengannur, about 100 km (62 miles) from Kochi, a long queue of women snaked out of a medical camp at the main relief center.

As a helicopter hovered overhead, doctors checked elderly men and women lying on wooden benches in an engineering college.

“People are being screened for respiratory infections,” said a camp doctor, Rajesh Parameshwaran, adding that another infection doctors were targeted was leptospirosis, which can strike people wading through stagnant water.

Those returning home from the camps as the waters recede face a difficult clean-up.

The insides of many homes will have about 60 cm (24 inches) of mud, officials said. Wells, commonly used in Kerala, are contaminated and few places have electricity to pump water.

Kochi’s airport has suspended operations until Sunday. National carrier Air India on Monday began flying turboprop planes from the city’s naval airport to the cities of Bangalore and Coimbatore in neighboring states.

To assist passengers, India’s aviation regulator asked domestic airlines to cap maximum fares to and from Kerala and nearby airports.

Kerala faces no shortage of food, at least. Traders had stocked up before the Hindu harvest festival of Onam on Saturday, the chief minister said.

Kerala has canceled all official celebrations of what is usually its biggest festive event.

Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress party, urged Modi not to discriminate between states controlled by his Bharatiya Janata Party and those such as Kerala, which it does not rule.

The state, ruled by the communist party, has received just a third of the immediate assistance of 20 billion rupees ($285 million) it sought from the federal government.

(Additional reporting by Jose Devasia in Kochi; writing by Malini Menon; editing by Larry King)

Rains pile misery on India’s flooded Kerala state as toll rises to 164

A man rescues a drowning man from a flooded area after the opening of Idamalayr, Cheruthoni and Mullaperiyar dam shutters following heavy rains, on the outskirts of Kochi, India August 16, 2018. REUTERS/Sivaram V

By Sivaram Venkitasubramanian and Gopakumar Warrier

KOCHI/BENGALURU, India (Reuters) – The worst floods in a century in the Indian state of Kerala have killed 164 people and forced more than 200,000 into relief camps, officials said on Friday, with more misery expected as heavy rain pushed water levels higher.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to visit the southwest state later on Friday and its chief minister said he was hoping the military could step up help for the rescue effort, which is already using dozens of helicopters and hundreds of boats.

“I spoke to the defense minister this morning and asked for more helicopters,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told a news conference in the state capital, Thiruvananthapuram, adding that he planned to send 11 more helicopters to the worst-hit places.

“In some areas, airlifting is the only option … thousands are still marooned,” said Vijayan.

The floods began nine days ago and Vijayan said 164 people had been killed – some in landslides – with about 223,000 people forced into 1,568 relief camps.

A Reuters witness on board a relief helicopter in Chengannur town in the south of the state said people stranded on roof tops were seen waving desperately at navy aircraft.

“The town looked like an island dotted with houses and cars submerged in muddy flood waters and downed coconut trees,” said the witness.

People wait for aid on the roof of their house at a flooded area in the southern state of Kerala, India, August 17, 2018. REUTERS/Sivaram V

Two navy helicopters circled as people on roofs of flooded homes waved clothing to call for help.

The helicopters dropped food and water in metal baskets and airlifted at least four people, including a three-year-old child, from roofs, the witness said.

Elsewhere, a man with a cast on his leg was seen lying on the roof of a church as he awaited rescue.

Anil Vasudevan, the head of the Kerala health disaster response wing, said his department had geared up to handle the needs of victims.

“We’ve deployed adequate doctors and staff and provided all essential medicines in the relief camps, where the evacuees will be housed,” he said.

But a big worry was what happens after the flood waters fall. People going home will be susceptible to water-borne diseases, he said.

“We are making elaborate arrangements to deal with that,” he said.

PLANES, TRAINS DISRUPTED

Kerala is a major destination for both domestic and foreign tourists.

The airport in its main commercial city of Kochi has been flooded it has suspended operations until Aug. 26 with flights being diverted to two other airports in the state. Rail and road traffic has also been disrupted in many places.

“Water levels continue to overflow on track and surpassing danger level of bridges at different places,” Southern Railway said in a statement, adding it had canceled more than a dozen trains passing through Kerala.

The office of the chief minister said heavy rain was falling in some places on Friday. More showers are expected over the weekend.

Modi said on Twitter that he would travel to Kerala “to take stock of the unfortunate situation”.

An aerial view shows partially submerged houses at a flooded area in the southern state of Kerala, India, August 17, 2018. REUTERS/Sivaram V

Kerala has been hit with 37 percent more rainfall than normal since the beginning of this monsoon, the Meteorological Department said.

Some plantations have also been inundated. The state is a major producer of rubber, tea, coffee and spices such as black pepper and cardamom.

“It’s very scary. I can still see people on their roofs waiting to be rescued,” said George Valy, a rubber dealer in Kottayam town.

(Reporting by Sivaram Venkitasubramanian in Kochi and Gopakumar Warrier in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Jose Devasia in Kochi and Swati Bhat and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Writing by Euan Rocha and Sankalp Phartiyal; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Heavy rain floods critical care unit at Indian hospital

FILE PHOTO: A woman carries drinking water after collecting it from a hand pump at a flood affected area in Hojai district, in the northeastern state of Assam, India, June 17, 2018. REUTERS/Anuwar Hazarika/File Photo

BHUBANESWAR/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Heavy rains flooded a hospital critical care unit in eastern India, an official said on Monday, as annual monsoon rains destroyed homes in several parts of the country and forced others to flee to higher ground.

Television showed doctors wading through knee-deep water tending to patients lying on raised beds at the government Nalanda Medical College and Hospital (NMCH) in Patna, the capital of Bihar state.

FILE PHOTO: A woman sits inside her flooded house after heavy rains in Ahmedabad, India, June 24, 2018. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File photo

Some patients had been moved out as staff pumped out water that had seeped into medical equipment.

More than 1,500 people have died so far this year across the country due to storms, floods and landslides. Most government action in India tends to focus on relief, with weak early warning systems and too little focus on prevention.

More rain is forecast for Bihar and neighboring Uttar Pradesh where 80 people have died over the last four days, either drowning or being hit by collapsing walls.

Rivers running through Uttar Pradesh were in spate. “The next one week is critical. If the water level rises consistently…definitely we will have a flood scenario,” said state relief commissioner Sanjay Kumar.

More than 10,000 people who lived near the banks of the Yamuna river in and around Delhi have been shifted to tents on higher ground as the water level crossed the danger mark, district magistrate K. Mahesh said.

(Reporting by Jatindra Dash in Bhubaneshwar and Neha Dasgupta in New Delhi; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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