Floods and landslide in Indonesia kill 21: official

More than 40 people have been killed after heavy rain triggered flash floods in Leh, the main town in India's trans-Himalayan Ladakh region, police said Friday."At-least 44 people are confirmed dead and dozens are missing," a spokesman at Leh's Police Control Room told AFP by telephone.Ladakh is a mountainous, Buddhist-dominated region, sitting in the southeastern part of Muslim-majority Kashmir, and is popular with adventure tourists interested in high-altitude trekking and river-running.

LUCKNOW, India — Torrential rain and floods washed away buildings and roads, killing at least 23 people in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, officials said Monday. More than a dozen people died in the state’s Rudraprayag district alone, while another 50 people were missing, said Amit Negi, an official in Uttarakhand. A landslide triggered by the monsoon rains buried a bus, killing three people in Almora district.

Indonesia denied on Thursday that flash floods in the remote area of Papua that killed at least 148 people were caused by rampant deforestation.Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said the flooding in West Papua province's Teluk Wondama district last Monday was caused by a natural dam bursting in the area after heavy downpours."The dam was formed by landslides, and the landslides were caused by heavy rains and probably triggered by earthquakes," Hasan said.

VANCOUVER — Backcountry enthusiasts are being warned to stay home this weekend as the avalanche risk hits extreme in some parts of the province, for the first time this winter. The Canadian Avalanche Centre says natural and human-triggered avalanches are certain in the Sea-to-Sky area, as well as the North and South Columbia regions, covering a huge section of B.C.’s southern and southeastern interior.

Flood-hit areas of central and southern China braced for more heavy rains Monday after millions of people were forced to evacuate or were otherwise affected by the early onset of the rainy season."Severe floods triggered by heavy rains will continue to threaten parts of southern China," Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei warned."There is an increasing possibility that downpours, with enhanced frequency and intensity, will continue to lash regions in the south," he said in a Sunday speech posted on his ministry's website.

Rescuers used diggers and bulldozers to search for up to 19 people believed trapped by rocks and mud after a landslide hit a remote gold-rush area in the Philippines, officials said.The official death toll from Friday's disaster stood at three but Pantukan town mayor Celso Sarenas on Sunday warned that the chance of more survivors being pulled from the debris was slim."We have to be realistic," the mayor told AFP. "We believe most of the missing were in their bunkhouses when the landslide occurred."

Rescue teams scoured ravines and hillsides searching for survivors of landslides that have killed 72 people in the past days as hopes dimmed with each passing hour.Searchers found four bodies on Monday in Angra dos Reis, a beach city 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Rio de Janeiro and firefighters said they thought more bodies could still be found."One of the bodies was that of a baby who was not on the list of the missing. This baby was probably with adults who also were buried," said Pedro Machado, a civil defense official.

Rescue teams scoured ravines and hillsides Monday searching for survivors of landslides that have killed 72 people in the past days as hopes dimmed with each passing hour.Searchers found four bodies on Monday in Angra dos Reis, a beach city 150 kilometers (93 miles) south of Rio de Janeiro and firefighters said they thought more bodies still could be found."One of the bodies was that of a baby who was not on the list of the missing. This baby was probably with adults who also were buried," said Pedro Machado, a civil defense official.