AHMEDABAD: Seventeen members of the same family were found dead Wednesday as floodwaters receded from a village in Gujarat, officials said, as the death toll from the state-wide disaster climbed above 110.
“They seem to have drowned in the floodwaters. The bodies were found buried in muck,” A B Parmar, a police inspector at the scene, told AFP, adding the deceased were from the same family.
A senior Gujarati government official, Pankaj Kumar, confirmed the discovery of the bodies in Banaskantha district.
Gujarat’s state emergency authority said yesterday at least 12 other bodies were found overnight as rescue crews sifted through communities devastated by heavy monsoon flooding.
The official death toll from the floods in the westernmost state stands at 111, with more than 36,000 people evacuated to safe areas as helicopters and boats try to reach those still stranded.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday conducted an aerial survey of the devastation across Gujarat. Apart from Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam have been hard-hit by monsoon flooding, while Odisha and Bihar have also been affected.
