At least 59 people died as floods cut a swatch across north-eastern India and Bangladesh, leaving millions of homes underwater, authorities said on Saturday.

In India’s Assam state, 18 people died in the floods or landslides and 2 million others had seen their homes submerged in flood waters since Thursday, the state disaster management agency said.

Lightning strikes triggered by the storms had killed at least 21 people in Bangladesh since Friday afternoon, police officials said. Among them were three children aged 12 to 14 who were struck in the rural town of Nandail, local police chief Mizanur Rahman said.

Another four people were killed when landslides hit their hillside homes in the port city of Chattogram (formerly known as Chittagong), police inspector Nurul Islam said.

Both countries have asked the military to help with the severe flooding, which could worsen because rains were expected to continue over the weekend.

The Brahmaputra – one of Asia’s largest rivers – breached its mud embankments, inundating 3,000 villages and croplands in 28 of Assam’s 33 districts.

“We expect moderate to heavy rainfall in several parts of Assam till Sunday,” said Sanjay O’Neil, an official at the meteorological station in Gauhati, Assam’s capital. “The volume of rainfall has been unprecedented.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/18/at-least-18-dead-and-millions-stranded-as-floods-devastate-india-and-bangladesh/

Temperatures in this landlocked city in Pakistan’s Sindh Province crossed 100 degrees for 51 straight days in March, and reached 123.8 degrees earlier last month.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20062022/jacobabad-pakistan-heat-health/

“Spain, France and other western European nations on Saturday sweltered under a blistering June heatwave that has sparked forest fires and concerns that such early summer blasts of hot weather will now become the norm.”

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220618-marker-of-climate-change-europe-swelters-in-record-breaking-june-heatwave