This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

India’s monsoon season has overrun by almost a month, with unprecedented rainfall causing deaths from collapsing buildings and many crops beginning to rot.

Normally the monsoon in north India recedes by the beginning of September, but the average rainfall this month has been 37% above normal. If the situation continues for the remaining few days, it will be the latest the monsoon has ever receded in decades, according to experts in the India Meteorological Department.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People shelter under a plastic sheet in Hyderabad. Photograph: Mahesh Kumar A/AP

Many areas of the country are still getting unprecedented rain, the latest being the town of Pune in western India, where torrential rain on Wednesday and Thursday caused several deaths and havoc from collapsed buildings.

Homes were flooded and people waded through streets with water up to their knees in scenes normally seen only at the height of the monsoon.

At least 50 people dead and 1 million affected by floods in south Asia Read more

Other cities such as Kolkata, Lucknow and Hyderabad have also experienced heavy rainfall. Uttarakhand state in the north has seen extensive damage to homes from the prolonged rains.

The monsoon was also late to arrive. Many areas suffered water shortages and farmers braced themselves for a possible drought.

The extended monsoon is not welcome among farmers. “This amount of rain is not normal at this time of the year. It is making my vegetables – I’ve got cabbage, beans, peas and tomatoes at the moment – rot,” said Prakash Mehra, a small farmer in Bhimtal in Uttarakhand.

For consumers, the impact of the delayed and now late-receding monsoon has meant a rise in the price in the price of onions, an essential ingredient in Indian food. Onions are selling at 80 rupees (about £1) a kilo in cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, as opposed to the normal 20 rupees (23p).

Festivals are also at risk. The next big festival is Dussehra on 8 October, when Hindus erect giant, comic book-style effigies of Ravana, a figure from the Hindu epic The Ramayana who sports a bushy moustache and an evil grin.

Burning Ravana symbolises the triumph of good over evil. But given that the effigies are made of paper, if the monsoon continues, Ravana might have the last laugh.