World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

In this Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012 photo, onlookers gather as Indian people carry out a rescue operation at an area affected by a landslide at a village in Pegong, in North Sikkim, India. Landslides triggered by heavy rains claimed many lives, including those of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Border Roads Organization (BRO) personnel in Sikkim. (AP Photo) 

Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people in India's remote northeast over the last three days, officials and news reports said Monday. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Police in Gangtok said Monday that 21 bodies were recovered after flood waters washed away a highway in Sikkim state that the men were working on. Ten thousand villagers were cut off by the heavy road damage near the town of Chungthan in the mountainous region. At least eight others were feared missing after a landslide hit another part of Sikkim.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that at least four people have been killed by flooding over the last three days in the neighbouring state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Assam state government said flood waters there have killed at least seven people and forced nearly a million to leave their homes.

Military helicopters have been dropping food supplies and helping rescue stranded villagers in the worst-hit parts of Assam, local officials said. In Tinsukhia district at least 150 people have been rescued by air force helicopters, local administrator Meenakshi Sundaram said.

He said river ferries were unable to reach at least one region because heavy timbers were floating down the Brahmputra river.