Thousands affected by Nepal flood

Many flood victims are suffering from diseases

Nearly 30,000 people are reported to have fled their homes after a dam collapsed in south-eastern Nepal leading to flooding in the area.

The police say they are trying to rescue the stranded people, but the high water levels are making airlifting them difficult.

The Koshi dam on the Saptakoshi river in Sunsari district collapsed on Monday afternoon after breaching embankments.

Many flood victims have taken shelter in school and college buildings.

The police say at least three people have drowned in the floods.

A number of villages have been inundated, a police officer said. “People stranded on the roofs of their houses are being rescued by boat rescue teams,” he added.

Traffic on a highway linking eastern Nepal with its western part has been affected after flood waters damaged a section of the road.

Many of the flood victims who are suffering from diarrhoea and fever have been taken to the district hospital, a police official said.

About 28 million people were affected by the floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal last year, in which more than 400 people died.

Sterling losses gather momentum

The pound has fallen further against the dollar, hitting its lowest level in almost two years amid fears the UK will fall into recession.

Sterling touched its lowest level since October 2006 at $1.8617 but later edged up to trade at $1.8691.

Measured against a basket of trade-weighted currencies, the pound is now at its weakest level since 1996.

The pound dropped sharply on Wednesday after the Bank of England issued a gloomy assessment of the UK economy.

The fall in sterling will hurt holidaymakers who have benefitted from a strong pound when traveling overseas- and make it more expensive for people to buy second homes abroad.

However, it could help exporters whose goods will be cheaper overseas.

The Bank’s governor Mervyn King said economic growth would be flat for the next year or so and that inflation would rise to 5% or above before falling.

But with domestic demand weak, a revival of exports could help the economy and limit job losses.

Rate cuts

Economists had thought inflation would prevent the Bank of England from cutting rates, but the Bank’s suggestion that inflation will begin to ease raised expectations of interest rate cuts and this hit the pound.

We have long argued that sterling has been significantly overvalued in recent years Jonathan Loynes, Capital Economics

Lower interest rates mean investors get lower returns on sterling deposits, which makes the pound less attractive.

Simon Derrick, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon, described the pound’s fall this week a “dramatic collapse” that recalled the aftermath of sterling’s ejection from European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1992.

However, he said the currency’s slide should begin to ease.

“Even within the most ferocious sterling downtrends in the past, significant corrections emerged in the middle of the moves,” he said.

But Jonathan Loynes, chief European economist at Capital Economics, thinks the pound could fall as far as $1.65 by the end of 2009.

“We have long argued that sterling has been significantly overvalued in recent years,” he said.

Deteriorating outlooks

Recent official figures have already shown the UK is struggling with high inflation and faltering growth.

Fears about European growth have also helped the dollar bounce back from record lows.

The US economy is still reeling from the credit crisis but analysts say the deteriorating outlook elsewhere in the world has given the dollar a boost.

Falling commodity prices have also supported the US currency. Investors had bought gold and oil to protect against dollar weakness and are now unwinding their positions.

The euro was trading at $1.4816 on Thursday, almost at the six-month low of $1.4815 struck this week. Earlier this year, the euro was trading at $1.60.

The euro has been further undermined by the military conflict in Georgia.