While Americans focus on Harvey’s floods, torrential rains leave South Asians in peril

More than 1,200 in India, Nepal and Bangladesh have died, and the rains aren't letting up.

As Americans direct their concerns toward the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast, where residents are still being rescued in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, on the other side of the world, in South Asia, the death toll has exceeded 1,200 from torrential rainfalls and flooding, says The Independent.

According to the United Nations, humanitarian agencies are working with Nepal’s government to bring in clean water, food, shelter and medical aid for some of the 41 million people affected by flooding and landslides in South Asia.

Thousands of homes have been destroyed and dozens of people swept away in the Himalayan country, the New York Times reported. “Many people are still missing, and some families have held last rites without their loved ones’ bodies being found,” the newspaper said.

According to Francis Markus, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the flooded areas are the poorest parts of the country, where most Nepalese live in bare mud houses and rely on subsistence farming.

In India, meanwhile, more than 400 people are believed to have died in floods in recent weeks in the State of Bihar alone.

And in Bangladesh, monsoons have left roughly a third of the country’s terrain submerged. At least 140 people have died, and nearly 700,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.