The death toll in flooding from heavy monsoon rains in India has climbed past 90, with about a million people taking shelter in government-run relief camps, officials said on Tuesday. Incessant downpours have damaged swaths of land, uprooted trees and snapped telephone cables in dozens of districts in the states of Bihar in the east, Assam in the remote northeast and Himachal Pradesh in the north. A total of 96 people have been killed in the flooding in the three states over the past week, according to state officials. The heavy monsoon rains have come after two straight years of drought in India. On Monday, landslides and heavy rains blocked highways leading to Tibet and Manali, a tourist resort in Himachal Pradesh state, with hundreds of people stranded for several hours before rescuers cleared the way, the Press Trust of India news agency said. In Bihar state, around 260,000 flood victims were taking shelter in more than 400 relief camps set up by the state government. At least 400 medical camps have been set up as well to aid people who have spent several nights outdoors after their homes were submerged by rain waters. In Assam, where floodwaters started receding on Tuesday, some 3.8 million people have been affected by the floods, according to state authorities. More than 700,000 have taken shelter in 770 relief camps. Meanwhile, Indian wildlife officers appealed on Tuesday for help in caring for eight rare baby rhinos feared orphaned by deadly floods in Assam. Rescue teams in boats have pulled the stranded rhinos from floodwaters which have hit India's famed Kaziranga National Park, home to the world's largest population of the one-horned animals. Rathin Barman, deputy director of the Wildlife Trust of India, said they were now struggling to feed and care for the rhinos, aged from one to eight months. "Some of them are injured and are being treated by our staff in the rescue center. We are right now hand-raising them, providing them formula milk and essential vitamins," Barman said. "We will release them only after two years," he added of the eight. "We appeal to the public to donate money for the upkeep of the rescued babies. They drink six packs of milk a day which costs 1,500 rupees ($23) and this will continue for a minimum of one year," he said. It was unclear whether the calves were left orphaned by the floods or were separated from their mothers as the beasts tried to flee to higher ground. Seventeen adult rhinos along with deer and other animals have been found drowned in Kaziranga, a 430-square-kilometer protected area of forest in the state of Assam. "It is sad that we lost about 17 rhinos in the floods this time, which is something unprecedented," Assam Forest Minister Pramilla Rani Brahma said on Tuesday. The park, home to about 2,500 rhinos, draws scores of tourists and was visited by Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate during their official tour of India earlier this year. Barman said he feared more rhinos would need assistance once waters receded in the park, which has been stripped of vegetation by the floods.
