At least 16 people have been killed and a quarter of a million people displaced from their homes after heavy monsoon rains lashed eastern India, officials said Tuesday, as the air force joined rescue efforts.

The latest deaths in West Bengal came a few days after 11 people were also killed in the state as the torrent of water swept away homes and triggered landslides.

Flooding and landslides are common during India's treacherous monsoon season from June to September and causes widespread devastation.

The annual downpours have been worsened by climate change, experts say.

Two river banks were breached and flooding affected at least half a million people in six districts in West Bengal over the past two days, the state's disaster management minister Javed Ahmed Khan told AFP.

Five of the 16 people killed were swept away in the flood and the rest died when their mud houses collapsed, officials said.

Dozens of people were plucked from the rooftop of a submerged building with military helicopters, including a 100-year-old woman and a nine-month-old baby, Khan added.

Panicked residents had to flee for higher ground after water from a nearby dam was released, causing sudden flooding.

"We fear scores of people are still marooned. Indian Air Force helicopters and disaster management personnel are struggling to rescue them," he added.

Villager Samir Nandi, 65, said he had "never witnessed such a flood".

"Many people in (my) village took refuge on the roof of the buildings and they are waiting to be rescued."

Authorities have set up more than 40 relief centres for the displaced in the flood-affected districts, senior state official Harekrishna Dribedi, said.

This year's monsoon, which had earlier inundated the western coast, has claimed the lives of at least 250 people so far.

Last month, at least 200 people died in the western state of Maharashtra after landslides sent torrents of mud onto villages.

The northern Himalayan states, including Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, have also reported several deaths.

Deadly summer of extreme weather as climate change bites
Paris (AFP) Aug 3, 2021 - Climate scientists have long warned that the 21st century would see more natural disasters made worse or more likely by global warming.

But a cascade of deadly extreme weather this summer in the northern hemisphere could make 2021 the year when climate predictions became a reality that can no longer be ignored.

From Death Valley-like temperatures in Canada to killer floods in China and Europe, we look at some of the worst disasters so far as the IPCC, the UN's climate change body, meets in Geneva.

- The Mediterranean burns -

Forest fires are raging around the Mediterranean from Turkey to Spain, with tourists evacuated in Italy and Greece and eight killed in the deadliest Turkish wildfires in decades.

The European Union sent three firefighting planes to Turkey on Monday as neighbouring Greece roasted in its worst heatwave since 1987.

Greek Deputy Civil Protection Minister Nikos Hardalias said "we are no longer talking about climate change but about a climate threat".

- Deluge in China -

The death toll in floods that hit China last month rose to 302 on Monday, with the central city of Zhengzhou deluged by a year's worth of rain in just three days.

Torrents of muddy water carried cars through the streets, and people were trapped in road tunnels and the subway system as the waters mounted.

- Canada's heat dome -

In late June, western Canada was caught under a "heat dome", a phenomenon causing scorching temperatures when hot air is trapped by high pressure fronts.

The country broke its record high temperature several times, finally hitting 49.6 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit) in the village of Lytton on June 30. Lytton was then mostly destroyed by fire.

The US Pacific northwest states of Washington and Oregon were also badly affected.

The exact death toll is not yet known but several hundred people are likely to have perished.

A study by a group of leading climate scientists found that the weather conditions would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change.

The World Weather Attribution group said global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions made the June heatwave at least 150 times more likely to happen.

- Deadly floods in Europe -

In mid-July western Europe was hit by devastating floods after torrential rains ravaged entire villages and left at least 209 people dead in Germany and Belgium, as well as dozens missing.

The flooding also caused damage in Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

Up to two months' worth of rainfall came down in two days in some parts of the region, waterlogging soil that was already near saturation.

- California wildfires -

Triggered by an alarming drought, the wildfire season is just starting in the American West where thousands of firefighters have already had to tackle more than 80 large blazes.

With 66 still burning and 3.4 million acres ravaged, President Joe Biden said at the weekend that climate change can no longer be ignored.

Some fires, including the Dixie blaze in northern California, have grown so large they are generating their own weather systems.

Marcus Kauffman, a specialist with the Oregon forestry department, said the blaze "feeds on itself" and has even been causing its own lightning.

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