14 dead in Nepal due to landslides, lightning, and floods

The monsoon rains annually bring widespread death and destruction across South Asia.

Torrential monsoon storms in Nepal have triggered landslides, lightning and flooding killing at least 14 people, a disaster official said Thursday.

Monsoon rains from June to September bring widespread death and destruction every year across South Asia, but the numbers of fatal floods and landslides have increased in recent years.

Experts say climate change and increased road construction are exacerbating the problem.

Among those killed on Wednesday were four people, two of them children, who were buried alive when three homes were swept away in a landslide in Lamjung district, west of Kathmandu, disaster official Dijan Bhattarai told AFP.

Other landslides killed four more people, while five people died after being struck by lightning, Bhattarai said, a spokesman at the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.

One more person drowned in floods, he said.

Six others have died in floods since the monsoon began this month.