100 killed as monsoon hits India

More than 100 people have been killed in floods and landslides after almost a metre of rain fell in India in 24 hours, it was reported today.

The monsoon rainfall - the heaviest ever recorded in the country - left tens of thousands stranded.

Airports were closed and Mumbai, India's financial powerhouse - formerly know as Bombay - was shut down during the deluge, officials said.

Meteorologists reported that 94.4cm of rain had fallen in a suburb of Mumbai in 24 hours, breaking the former record of 83.8cm recorded in Cherrapunji, north-eastern India, in 1910.

Monsoon-related incidents have killed 633 people during the past two months, India's home minister, Shivraj Patil, told parliament.

Mr Patil said around 5.6 million people in 16,000 villages had been hit by the heavy seasonal rains, which washed away tens of thousands of homes as well as roads, railway tracks and bridges.

More than 76,000 farm animals died and over 700,000 acres of crops were destroyed by the swirling flood waters, he added.

The latest rains killed at least 103 people, with a further 130 feared to have been buried in landslides, according to authorities and news reports.

"Most places in India don't receive this kind of rainfall in a year," the director of Mumbai's meteorological department, RV Sharma, said. "We have to compare it with world records to find out if this was the highest in the world."

At least 78 people died in weather-related tragedies in Maharashtra and the southern state of Kerala yesterday.

A further 25 were drowned today after being trapped in cars or crushed by falling walls, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Maharashtra's top elected official, said.

He said the deaths included seven children killed in a landslide in suburban Mumbai's Andheri district. Earlier today, he ordered the army, navy and home guard to help with relief operations.

The state-run All India Radio reported that around 150,000 people were stranded in railway stations across Mumbai.

Roads were packed all night, with the domestic and international airports in Mumbai - among the busiest in the country - having been shut down since yesterday evening. All incoming flights are being diverted to New Delhi and other airports.

Rescuers started arriving in Kondivali village, 95 miles south of Mumbai, last night, hoping to dig out almost 100 people trapped there, police said. At least 30 more are feared to have been buried in another mudslide in the nearby village of Jui.

India's monsoon rains, which usually last from June to September, claim hundreds of lives every year.