Rain-related disasters have killed more than 250 in a deadly week across Asia

In India and China, torrential rains have killed more than 250 people in the past week. Three others died in Pakistan. Widespread flooding has been reported in North Korea near the border with China with no word on whether anyone died.

This time of year is monsoon and typhoon season in Asia, and climate change has intensified such storms. Heavy rains have triggered landslides and flooding, devastating crops, destroying homes and taking lives.

Historical data shows that China is having more extremely hot days and more frequent intense rains, according to a report released last month by the China Meteorological Administration, which forecasts more of both in the coming 30 years.

Governments have launched disaster prevention plans to try to mitigate the damage. Rescue teams scramble to evacuate people ahead of approaching storms and deliver relief goods by helicopter to cut-off areas. China has deployed drones for emergency communication in rain-prone provinces.

Sometimes it isn't enough, as the tragic consequences playing out in Asia show.

Heavy rains sent torrents of mud and water through tea estates and villages in Kerala state in southern India early Tuesday, destroying bridges and flattening houses.

Hope of finding survivors has waned as the search entered its fourth day. Bodies have been found as many as 30 kilometers (20 miles) downriver from the main landslides.

The area is known for its picturesque tea and cardamom estates, with hundreds of plantation workers living in nearby temporary shelters. “This was a very beautiful place," a shopkeeper said. “I used to visit here many times. ... Now there is nothing left.”

India regularly has severe floods during the monsoon season, which runs between June and September and brings rain that is crucial for crops.

Typhoon Gaemi was blamed for more than 30 deaths in the Philippines and 10 in Taiwan as it churned through the western Pacific last week, but it was still fatal after weakening to a tropical storm in China.

Rain drenched parts of inland Hunan province for several days. On Sunday morning, a mudslide slammed into a homestay house in a popular weekend spot, killing 15 people.

Elsewhere in Hunan, the bodies of three people were found on Monday, believed to be victims of another landslide. And authorities in nearby Zixing city announced Thursday that 30 people had died in floods, with 35 others missing.

One other death in China was apparently tied to the storm, a delivery driver on a scooter struck by falling tree branches during high winds in Shanghai.

China has recorded 25 major floods this year, the most since it began keeping statistics in 1998, the Ministry of Water Resources said this week.

The tropical storm also generated heavy rain in northeast China on the border with North Korea, overflowing the Yalu River, which divides the two countries.

In North Korea, the rain flooded 4,100 houses, 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of farmland and many public buildings, roads and railways.

Its state media did not give information on deaths, though the nation's leader Kim Jong Un implied there were casualties when he was quoted blaming public officials who had neglected disaster prevention, causing "the casualty that cannot be allowed.”

Military helicopters and navy and other government boats evacuated stranded residents. State TV aired footage showing Kim and other officials riding on rubber boats to examine the scale of the damage. The footage showed houses submerged in muddy waters with only their roofs visible.

On the Chinese side, state television showed excavators in rushing water trying to clear debris after a mudslide in Jilin province. One city near North Korea asked people living below the third floor to move higher as the Yalu River rose.

In Dandong, a large Chinese city along the river, rescuers evacuated residents in rubber dinghies on streets turned into virtual lakes. There were no reports of deaths.

Record rainfall in the city of Lahore flooded streets and left at least three people dead in Pakistan on Thursday. The deaths at the start of August came on top of 99 rain-related fatalities the previous month.

Some parts of Lahore recorded 353 millimeters (14 inches) of rain in a few hours, breaking a 44-year-old record. The rain was so heavy that it entered some hospital wards in the capital of Punjab province.

The victims included two children, one who drowned in a flooded street and another who fell from the roof of her house.

The spelling of Zixing city has been corrected in this story.

FILE - Motorcyclists and cars drive through a flooded road caused by heavy monsoon rainfall in Karachi, Pakistan, on July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan, File)

FILE - This undated photo provided on July 29, 2024 by the North Korean government, shows a flood-hit area in North Phyongan province, North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

FILE - This undated photo provided on July 31, 2024 by the North Korean government, shows a flood-hit area in Sinuiju city, North Phyongan province, North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: "KCNA" which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

FILE - Rescuers search through mud and debris for a third day after landslides set off by torrential rains in Wayanad district, Kerala state, India, on Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)

FILE - Children push their father's scooter through a flooded street as it rains in Mumbai, India, on July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool, File)

FILE - In this drone photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a landslide destroys a house in Yuelin village of Shouyue town of Hengyang city, central China's Hunan Province on July 28, 2024. (Chen Zhenhai/Xinhua via AP, File)

FILE - Rescuers use a dinghy boat to evacuate villagers trapped by floodwaters in Jingtang village, Zixing city, in southern China's Hunan province, on July 28, 2024. (Chinatopix via AP, File)

AVIGNON, France (AP) — A man accused of drugging his then-wife and inviting dozens of men to rape her over nearly a decade is testifying in court on Tuesday in southern France, in a case that has shocked the country.

Dominique Pélicot, now 71, faces 20 years in prison if convicted. While he previously confessed to investigators, the court testimony will be crucial for the panel of judges to decide on the fate of some 50 other men standing trial next to him, all accused of raping Gisèle Pélicot.

Many also hope his testimony will shed some light — to try to understand the unthinkable.

Gisèle Pélicot, who has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France for agreeing to waive her anonymity in the case and let the trial be public, is expected to speak in court after her ex-husband's testimony on Tuesday.

Bernadette Tessonière, a 69-year-old retiree who lives a half-hour drive from Avignon, where the trial is taking place, arrived outside the courthouse at 7:15 a.m. to make sure she would secure a seat in the closely watched case.

“How is it possible that in 50 years of communal life, one can live next to someone who hides his life so well? This is scary,” she said, while standing in a line outside the courthouse. “I don’t have much hope that what he did can be explained, but he is at least going to give some elements.”

Pélicot’s much-awaited testimony was delayed by days after he fell ill, suffering from a kidney stone and urinary infection, his lawyers said.

A security agent caught Pélicot in 2020 taking videos under women’s skirts in a supermarket, according to court documents. Police searched Pélicot's house and electronic devices, and found thousands of photos and videos of men engaging in sexual acts with Gisèle Pélicot while she appears to lie unconscious on their bed.

With the recordings, police were able to track down a majority of the 72 suspects they were seeking.

She and her husband of 50 years had three children. When they retired, the couple left the Paris region to move into a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence.

When police officers called her in for questioning in late 2020, she initially told them her husband was “a great guy,'' according to legal documents. They then showed her some photos. She left her husband and they are now divorced.

Besides Pélicot, 50 other men, aged 26 to 74, are standing trial. Many deny having raped Pélicot, saying they were manipulated by her ex-husband or claiming they believed she was consenting.

FILE - Gisele Pelicot speaks to media as she leaves the Avignon court house, southern France, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)

FILE - Gisele Pelicot, left, arrives in the Avignon court house, in Avignon, southern France, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)

FILE - Gisele Pelicot, left, arrives in the Avignon court house, in Avignon, southern France, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)