Floods, landslides kill 31 in Nepal

The government ordered local officials to accelerate rescue operations after the rains triggered massive landslides in the mountainous regions and flooding on the plains of west Nepal.

Army helicopters flying rescue missions carried stranded people away from fast-flowing floodwaters to safer areas, state-run television showed.

Government spokesman Baman Prasad Neupane said Home Minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, who made an aerial tour of the area Monday, had "directed the local administration in the flood- and landslide-affected areas to speed up rescue efforts".

He said rescuers were urgently trying to discover the fate of 63 people in a village in badly-hit Banke area in mid-western Nepal that has been cut off by floods.

He said the village inhabitants were missing but could not confirm the overall death tally of 31 reported in the media.