SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
More than 300 people have died across South Asia after heavy monsoon rains triggered flash floods and landslides in recent days. Tens of thousands have been left homeless or forced to seek shelter elsewhere. Reporter Shamim Chowdhury has more.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAMIM CHOWDHURY, BYLINE: Rescue workers carry shrouded bodies across fast-flowing streams. In the remote, mountainous district of Buner in northern Pakistan, others search desperately for survivors. It's the hardest hit area in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where hundreds have been killed and entire villages wiped out by floodwaters and cloudbursts that have unleased unusually heavy rainfall. Schoolteacher Suleman Khan lost most of his family in the floods.
SULEMAN KHAN: (Through interpreter) Twenty-five people from our family have died fighting the floods. My nephew was coming from Malaysia, so one of my brothers went to pick him up. And I was at school, so we survived.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
CHOWDHURY: A funeral service is underway for the victims. Dozens of bodies lie side by side. One witness, Sher Azam, says he watched the tragedy unfold before his eyes.
SHER AZAM: (Through interpreter) We saw their condition. Everyone, including the car, was drowned. There was a lot of damage in this incident.
CHOWDHURY: Monsoon rains since June have caused widespread death and destruction across South Asia. In Pakistan, authorities report this year's rainfall is 50% higher than last year.
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CHOWDHURY: In Indian-controlled Kashmir, heavy machinery cuts through the rubble of collapsed houses. Deadly flash floods here killed 60 people and injured around 150 others.
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CHOWDHURY: And in northern Bangladesh, tens of thousands of people remain stranded after heavy rains caused the Teesta and Dudhkumar rivers to overflow. Experts say the cause is a mix of climate change, heavy industrialization and deforestation.
SIDDHARTH SINHA: Because it causes warming, you actually have air that's more moist to begin with, which means its air is more dense, so it doesn't hold the moisture for a very long time. So that actually results in excessive rainfall.
CHOWDHURY: This is Siddharth Sinha, a climate fellow at Yale University. He told NPR that climate change is driving heavier rainfall across South Asia, but poor infrastructure and a lack of environmental awareness also contribute to the problem.
SINHA: Communities are very vulnerable because houses are essentially being built on floodplains, which - you know, which people just saw them to be dry, and they built houses there without realizing that many years ago that a river actually used to flow through there.
CHOWDHURY: It's a recurring story across this vast region every year. Sinha says cutting carbon emissions is the most obvious solution, but it will take more resources and a coordinated global effort. Meanwhile, authorities warned that heavy rain will continue across the region in the coming days, putting the most remote and impoverished communities at risk. For NPR News, I'm Shamim Chowdhury. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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