At least 100 people were believed missing after a massive landslide in Nepal with fresh rains hampering rescue operations Sunday, while thousands of villagers were forced to evacuate in neighbouring India following warnings of floods downstream, dpa reported. The landslide in central Nepal on Saturday buried homes and created a large mud dam that blocked the flow of the Sunkoshi River. The death toll rose to 10 as two more bodies were pulled out, but the Home Ministry said there was little progress in rescue operations at the site in the district of Sindupalchowk because of fresh rainfall. A man was killed after being struck by the propeller of a rescue helicopter, state-run Nepal Television reported. "We've formed an assessment team to find how exactly how many people are missing, but we have no definite figures yet," Jhanka Dhakal, the head of the ministry's National Emergency Operation Centre, told dpa. "It is suspected that at least a hundred have gone missing." Deputy Prime Minister Bamdev Gautam visited the site and asked people asked to be on alert. Authorities in neighbouring India issued a flood-alert for the north-eastern state of Bihar, where the Sunkoshi River flows from the Himalayan country and is locally known as the Kosi River. At least 44,000 villagers living along the banks of the Kosi had been moved to 117 relief camps, Bihar state disaster management official Anirudh Kumar said. Earlier in the day, water levels in Nepal were said to be receding as the nearly 100-metre-high mud dam had started to overflow on its own, but the army was preparing to use explosives to blast open portions of it. -- SPA 19:32 LOCAL TIME 16:32 GMT تغريد
