The storm, dubbed Alex, ravaged several villages around the city of Nice on the French Riviera. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi called it the worst flooding disaster in the area for more than a century after flying over the worst-hit area by helicopter.

“The roads and about 100 houses were swept away or partially destroyed,” he told French news channel BFM.

At least eight people were missing in France, authorities said. These included two firemen whose vehicle was carried away by a swollen river, according to local witnesses cited by several French media.

In Italy, at least one person died and up to 11 people were missing, local authorities said, Reuters reported.

A fireman was killed by a falling tree in the Valle d’Aosta region, while three people travelling in a van were swept away by flood waters in Val Roya on the border with France.

Six German trekkers were among the missing after failing to return from a trip in the mountains in the province of Cuneo.

Officials in the Piedmont region reported a record 630 mm (24.8 inches) of rain in just 24 hours in Sambughetto, close to the border with Switzerland. The Piedmont regional chief Alberto Cirio called on the government to declare a state of emergency.

Television images shot in Italy showed several roads and bridges in the northwest of the country had been swept away by flood water and numerous rivers were reported to have burst their banks.

Eric Ciotti, a member of French parliament who is from one of the worst affected villages in the area, Saint-Martin-Vesubie, said several villages were cut off as they are located in steep-sided valleys of the mountainous region.

Meteo France said that rains of 450 mm (17.7 inches) of rain were registered over 24 hours in some areas – the equivalent of close to four months of rain at this time of the year.

There was more rainfall than on Oct. 3 2015, when floods caused the death of 20 people in and around the French Riviera city of Cannes, Jeremy Crunchant, the director of civil protection, told France Info.

Venice, a long-delayed flood barrier system successfully protected the lagoon city from a high tide for the first time on Saturday, bringing big relief following years of repeated inundations.

The IOM Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) found that at least 596 families – or 3,567 individuals – had been forced out of their homes once during the period from 2-8 August, noting that the city of Hudaydah recorded the largest displacement figures with 568 families affected, the Middle East Monitor reported.

According to the organization, from January 1 to August 8, IOM Yemen’s Displacement Tracking Matrix monitored the displacement of 18,455 families or 110,730 individuals at least once.

For weeks, Yemen has been witnessing heavy rains which have caused flooding.

A Yemeni official from the Organization for the Preservation of Historic Cities of Yemen (GOPHCY) warned that 5,000 buildings in the Old City of Sana’a, which is registered as a World Heritage Site, are at risk of collapse as a result of the rains.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan said late Wednesday that 14 of Sudan’s 18 provinces have experienced seasonal rains in recent days. North Darfur, White Nile, Sennar and Kassala states are the latest to report storms and flooding, the report said.

In North Darfur, at least 600 internally displaced people are “in dire need” of shelter and food after a flash flood hit the camp where they lived in the Al Lait area.

“The Sudan Meteorological Authority has warned that more heavy rains are expected during August and September in most of the country, which can lead to further flooding and displacement,” said UNOCHA, AP reported.

Last week, heavy rains caused the collapse of the Bout Dam in Blue Nile province, destroyed 1,200 houses and left at least five people dead across the country.

The Sudanese government and humanitarian agencies are monitoring the situation and providing assistance to those affected, said UNOCHA.

Last year, flooding killed a total of 78 people in 16 Sudanese provinces, between July and August, according to the UN.

The country’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC) reported that the situation may worsen further as major rivers in the central districts around Dhaka are set to rise in the next couple of days.

After starting in late June, the flooding left more than 1 million people marooned at their homes and at least 41 people, including 31 children, dead, Disaster Management Ministry spokeswoman Tasmin Ara Azmiri told DPA. Drowning caused most of the deaths, she added.

Referring to the Global Flood Awareness System, the humanitarian information website ReliefWeb has warned the current floods may be the most prolonged since 1988 flooding that submerged two-thirds of Bangladesh for more than two months, causing extensive damage.

This time, 31 out of 64 administrative districts have been submerged by floodwaters, prompting many people to move to shelters, according to the disaster management department.

The flooding has caused widespread damage to flood protection embankments, crops, poultry, livestock and fisheries, according to the website.

It may further exacerbate the humanitarian situation amid the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has left 3,000 people dead, it added.

Emergency supplies of food and cash support have been dispatched, Azmiri said.

The FFWC predicted the waters are likely to start receding next week. South Asia experiences flooding almost every year during the monsoon season, which runs from June through September.

The landslide occurred on Tuesday when 1.5 million cubic meters of earth fell into a tributary of the Yangtze River near the city of Enshi in Hubei province, the Xinhua news agency said, citing local flood control authorities.

China’s state weather bureau said on Wednesday that the country was hit by fresh rounds of torrential rain this week, further raising flood risks throughout the country, Reuters reported.

Red alerts have been declared in the provinces of Anhui and Jiangxi, which are bisected by the Yangtze. China’s water resources ministry also warned on Tuesday that water levels in the Yangtze and adjoining lakes would continue to rise.

Ministry officials said they needed to keep a close eye on water levels at the Three Gorges Dam, which has been storing huge volumes of water in order to ease downstream flood risks and is now 16 meters higher than its official warning level.

China’s giant dams, designed to contain floods and generate electricity, have come under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks. While officials have talked up their role in reducing flood peaks, critics say they not only fail to protect against extreme weather but also end up cutting flood storage capacity.

Dams block the flow of sediment and reduce the ability of downstream flood plains and wetlands to absorb flood waters, said Darrin Magee, a professor at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges who specializes in China’s water issues.

The need to generate power can also undermine flood control efforts, he added.

“Flood control requires retaining water, and power production requires letting it out,” he said.

The overflowing Brahmaputra River, which flows through China’s Tibet, India, and Bangladesh, has damaged crops and triggered mudslides, displacing millions of people, officials said.

More than 2.75 million people in Assam have been displaced by three waves of floods since late May that has claimed 79 lives after two more deaths were reported overnight, a state government official said.

“The flood situation remains critical with most of the rivers flowing menacingly above the danger mark,” Assam water resources Minister Keshab Mahanta told Reuters.

Assam is facing the twin challenge of combating floods and the coronavirus pandemic. Out of 33 districts, 25 remained affected after the current wave of flooding, beginning a fortnight ago.

India is grappling with the novel coronavirus, which has infected nearly 1.1 million people and 26,816 have died from the COVID-19 disease, government data showed on Sunday.

In neighboring Nepal, the government asked residents along its southern plains on Sunday to remain alert as heavy monsoon rains were expected to pound the Himalayan nation where more than 100 have died in floods and landslides since June, officials said.

Some 110 people were killed and another 100 injured as landslides and flash floods washed or swept away homes, upended roads and bridges and displaced hundreds of others in 26 of the country’s 77 districts, police said.

Home ministry official Murari Wasti said the death toll was expected to rise as 48 people were still missing.

“Search and rescue teams are looking for those who are missing in different places but chances of finding them alive are slim,” Wasti told Reuters.

Barun Paudel of the weather forecasting office in the capital, Kathmandu, said heavy rains were expected to pound much of the mainly mountainous nation in the next four days.

“We have urged residents to remain alert against possible landslides and floods,” he said.

Landslides and flash floods are common in Nepal, India’s Assam and Bihar states during the June-September annual rainy season.

Torrential annual rains resulting in monsoon floods are crucial for agriculture in South Asia, but this year India is also grappling with the virus, which has infected 968,875 people and killed 24,915, health authorities say.

The floods have killed at least 10 people and injured more than 70 in the states of Assam, Bihar, and Jharkhand, where heavy rain has submerged thousands of villages in the past 24 hours as authorities battle to ensure social distancing in relief camps.

“We have floods taking a deadly turn and simultaneously we are fighting the pandemic spreading its tentacles everywhere,” Assam’s health minister, Hemant Biswa Sarma, told Reuters.

At a time when world attention is focused on the crisis in the United States and South America, a human tragedy is swiftly unfolding in South Asia, said John Fleming of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

“COVID-19 is spreading at an alarming rate in South Asia, home to a quarter of humanity,” said Fleming, the group’s head of health in the Asia-Pacific region, referring to the contagious respiratory disease.

“India alone is nearing 1 million infections in the coming days.”

Officials said that swathes of Assam’s Kaziranga National Park had been submerged with at least 50 wild animals dead, while some rhinos had strayed into villages, adding to the hazards relief and rescue workers face.

The UNESCO World Heritage site is home to two-thirds of the world’s population of the one-horned rhinoceros.

Nine people were killed and more than 30 were missing in Myagdi district, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of the capital Katmandu, where several houses were destroyed on Friday, district administrator Gyan Nath Dhakal said, Reuters reported.

“The toll is expected to increase as rescuers had just reached the remote site to look for victims,” Dhakal said, adding that 50 people had been plucked to safety using helicopters.

In neighboring Kaski district, seven people were killed, said a second government official in the tourist town of Pokhara.

Another seven were killed in the Jajarkot district in the far west.

“We are searching for eight people who are still missing,” said Kishore Shrestha, a senior police official.

In the southern plains bordering India, the Koshi River, which causes deadly floods in the eastern Indian state of Bihar almost every year, was flowing above the danger level, police said.

Landslides and flash floods are common occurrences in mountainous Nepal during the June-September monsoon every year.

Parts of Nagano and Gifu, including areas known for scenic mountain trails and hot springs, were flooded by massive downpours.

Footage on NHK television showed a swollen river gouging into the embankment, destroying a highway, while in the city of Gero, the rising river was flowing just below a bridge.

Flooding and mudslides disrupted parts of the main road connecting Kamikochi and Matsumoto, two main tourist destinations in Nagano, stranding hundreds of residents and visitors, though they are believed to have safely evacuated. In neighboring Gifu, hundreds of others were also isolated in the hot springs town of Gero and Ontake.

In another mountainous scenic town of Takayama, several houses were hit by a mudslide, their residents all safely rescued.

As of Wednesday morning, the death toll from the heavy rains starting over the weekend had risen to 58, most of them from the hardest-hit Kumamoto prefecture. Four others were found in Fukuoka, another prefecture on Kyushu, Japan’s third-largest island.

At the peak, as many as 3.6 million people were advised to evacuate, although it wasn’t mandatory and the number who took shelter was not known. About half of the advisories have been lifted by Wednesday afternoon.

In places where rain had subsided, residents were busy cleaning up their homes and workplaces.

In Gero, a man washed down mud at the entrance of his riverside house despite the evacuation advisory. “I was told to run away and my neighbors all went, but I stayed,” he said. “I didn’t want my house to be washed away in my absence.”

In Oita, teachers at a nursery school were wiping the floor and drying the wet furniture. “I hope we can return to normal life as soon as possible,” Principal Yuko Kitaguchi told NHK.

Though the rains were causing fresh flooding threats in central Japan, flooding was still affecting the southern region. And search and rescue operations continued in Kumamoto, where 14 people are still missing.

Tens of thousands of army troops, police, and other rescue workers mobilized from around the country to assist, and the rescue operations have been hampered by the rains, flooding, mudslides, and disrupted communications.

In Kagoshima, a pickup truck was hit by a mudslide and fell into the ocean, but the driver was airlifted out with a head injury, according to Fuji Television. In another town in Oita, two brothers in their 80s were dug up alive by rescuers after a mudslide smashed into their hillside house, NHK said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga urged residents to use caution. “Disasters may happen even with little rain where grounds have loosened from previous rainfalls,” he said, AP reported.

Suga pledged continuing search and rescue efforts, as well as emergency funds for the affected areas.

Japan is at high risk of heavy rain in early summer when wet and warm air from the East China Sea flows into a seasonal rain front above the country. In July 2018, more than 200 people, about half of them in Hiroshima, died from heavy rain and flooding in southwestern Japan.