Floods and landslides kill two in Georgia

TBILISI: Two people died in western Georgia where heavy rains triggered floods and landslides, officials said on Friday, as rescuers continued to evacuate dozens of trapped villagers.

“Rescuers found the bodies of two dead, one of them a minor,” the Caucasus nation´s interior ministry said in a statement. It said a search operation was under way to find one missing teenager and evacuate dozens of people trapped in villages of the western Guria region that was hit by floods and landslides after heavy rains.

Last month, 26 people were killed at the resort town of Shovi in northwestern Georgia in a landslide caused by melting glaciers and heavy rainfall.

Heavy rains and flooding are fairly common in the mountainous country, where steep slopes pose a risk of landslides. In 2008, six people were killed by a landslide in the southern Black Sea region of Ajara.