45 dead after heavy rains in India's Gujarat

NEW DELHI: At least 45 people have died, mostly in house collapses and drowning, amid heavy rains in India's western Gujarat state over the past two days, officials said Thursday.
The southern Saurashtra region was worst hit with most of the deaths reported from Amreli district, an official at the Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority said.
At least two districts in southern Gujarat - Amreli and Rajkot - and the Gir National Park, sole home of the Asiatic lion, were facing floods, the official said.
The National Disaster Response Force and the Indian Air Force were engaged in rescue and relief work along with local disaster management personnel and police.
A flood alert was sounded in Jammu and Kashmir state Thursday after the Jhelum and other rivers rose beyond their danger levels, IANS news agency reported.
The region has seen incessant rainfall since Wednesday, after facing the worst floods in its history in the 2014 monsoon season, which runs from June to September.
In the north-eastern state of Assam, the flood situation was improving after 21,000 people and large areas of crop land had been affected, according to a report late Wednesday by the state's disaster management unit. – dpa