More than a dozen Mountain Rescue Teams assisted thousands of pilgrims during this year's Amarnath pilgrimage in the south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said on Monday, as the annual yatra concluded with more than 5.10 lakh pilgrims offering prayers at the cave shrine.
An NDRF personnel went through the passage, pushing a wheeled stretcher tied to a rope at the end of the tunnel and was pulled back up after completing the stretch.
While rain intensity reduced on Tuesday compared to a day ago, affecting mainly districts in the Saurashtra region, administration carried out rescue and relief operations on a large scale, shifting thousands of people to shelters.
As Cyclone Dana barrels toward the coasts of Odisha, threatening to impact nearly half of the state's population, the government is racing against time to execute a massive evacuation plan aimed at relocating about 10 lakh people in several coastal districts to safety. In West Bengal, the cyclone is set to bring heavy rainfall in several southern West Bengal districts, including Kolkata, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday said the Centre had sent multiple advance warnings to the Kerala government about possible floods and landslides in the state, starting as early as July 23, and nine National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams were rushed to the state the same day.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday termed as 'baseless', Union Home Minister Amit Shah's claim that the state government did not heed the Centre's warning regarding a possible natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.
'They charge such high fees and offer us this safety. Our lives have become a mockery.'
Rain-related incidents claimed nine more lives in Gujarat, taking the death toll to 16 in two days, while another 8,500 people were relocated and rescued from flood-affected areas with rains continuing to lash some parts of the state for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, officials said.
Government sources said Modi will also chair meetings to review the aftermath of the Cyclone Remal, especially in the north east region hit by natural disasters.
The federal contingency force has taken out 44 victims alive and 71 bodies from the mangled railway coaches in Balasore district since its first team reached the accident site around 8:30 pm on Friday.
At least 28 people died in rain-related incidents Sunday as heavy downpours lashed north and northwest India, causing landslides, traffic chaos and house collapses, as well as a dam breach which inundated several villages in Haryana.
The death toll in the landslide at Irshalwadi hamlet in Maharashtra's Raigad district mounted to 27 on Saturday with the recovery of five more bodies from the debris on the third day of the search and rescue operation, a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official said.
The pictures and videos of the locals wading through waist deep water in Bawana JJ colony area, waterlogged houses, school and hospital went viral on social media even as teams of engineers from Haryana and Delhi worked on a war footing to plug the breach.
Rescue operations were underway on Friday to trace over 45 people missing following flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in three districts of Himachal Pradesh, officials said on Friday.
A large number of logs had floated into the reservoir following heavy rains in the past few days and the five employees along with some locals had gone to take stock of the situation.
The toll in Monday's temple collapse incident increased to 17 with rescue teams recovering one more body on Sunday.
The teams are equipped with inflatable boats, ropes and other rescue equipment.
The construction of a Bailey bridge to connect the landslide-hit areas, where several people are believed to be stranded, alongside the deployment of sniffer dogs and over 1,000 rescuers from Central and state emergency response teams conducting massive search operations, constitutes one of the largest rescue efforts in the Wayanad, devastated by a deadly calamity.
Many low-lying areas in West Bengal's sub-Himalayan region were reeling from a flood-like situation while major rivers in Bihar were flowing above the danger level at several places as unabated heavy rain lashed the country's eastern parts on Sunday.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said none of the 41 labourers rescued from an under-construction road tunnel in Uttarkashi district was in a critical condition.
A sudden downpour in Delhi caught citizens off guard and caused heavy waterlogging and traffic jams on Tuesday while Mumbai breathed a sigh of relief as showers stopped a day after heavy rain brought the metropolis to its knees.
A major fire broke out inside the industrial area of Dombivli in Thane after a boiler exploded at the plant of a chemical company.
Five people were killed and about 50 missing following several incidents of cloudburst in Himachal Pradesh where rains washed away many houses, bridges and roads, officials said on Thursday.
Prime Minister N D Modi interacted with members of the National Disaster Response Force and Indian Army who were deployed on Operation Dost in earthquake-shattered Turkey on Monday, February 20, 2023.
In one of the worst natural disasters in Kerala, at least 123 persons were killed and 128 injured in massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Wayanad on Tuesday. With hundreds trapped under the debris, sparking fears of mounting fatalities, rescue agencies were racing against time to pull out any survivors.
100 people are feared trapped as Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district was buried by a landslide early on Thursday morning.
NDRF director general Atul Karwal told PTI that the teams are undertaking continuous familiarisation exercises and conducting simulation drills in the temple town to respond to any contingency.
'We waded through the wet mud into the school, and what we saw were dead bodies strewn all over.' 'We could also see parts of human bodies buried under the wet mud.' 'It was a sight I will never forget in my life. Total devastation everywhere.'
The moment four National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel arrived on the other side of the rubble at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand to rescue 41 labourers trapped inside, their hopes of a safe evacuation were kindled, team commander Manmohan said.
According to IMD, the cyclonic storm weakened into a 'deep depression' at 11:30 pm on Friday over Southeast Pakistan.
This is the first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal this pre-monsoon season.
Indian cricket fraternity reacts to Silkyara tunnel rescue
Feroze Qureshi and Monu Kumar, experts in the rat-hole mining technique, were the first to meet the 41 labourers rescued from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand after they cleared the last bit of the rubble inside the structure.
The leader of the 12-member team from Rockwell Enterprises, Wakeel Hassan, said he was approached for help by a company involved in the rescue operation four days ago. "The work got delayed while removing the portion of the auger from the rubble. We started at 3 pm on Monday and finished the work at 6 pm on Tuesday," Hassan said, adding, "We had said the work would be finished in 24 to 36 hours and that is what we did."
'Except that the population was much less.' 'I remember my uncle and family moving away from the base of a hill whenever it rained for more than a couple of days without a dry day in between.' 'Perhaps the older generations knew if it rained for more than a certain time, they must pack up to a camp or to a relative.' 'As some of the interviews of the survivors on the Malayalam television channels show, the elderly people had a premonition a tragedy would happen, and those who acted on those premonitions survived.'
Boring through the rubble of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel was put on hold again on Thursday apparently after cracks appeared in the platform on which the drilling machine rests, in a fresh hurdle to the rescue of 41 workers trapped inside for 11 days.
As severe cyclonic storm 'Remal' initiated its landfall process between the coasts of Bangladesh and adjoining West Bengal on Sunday evening, authorities took swift action, evacuating over 1 lakh people from vulnerable areas of the state to safety.
The home minister will also review the preparation for the annual Amarnath pilgrimage set to start on June 29.
Severe cyclonic storm Michaung crossed south Andhra Pradesh coast close to Bapatla district between 12.30 pm and 2.30 pm on Tuesday with maximum gales of up to 90-100 km per hour speed, said an Amaravati Meteorological Centre official.
Glimpses of havoc caused by flooding in Kullu, Patiala and Chandigarh due to incessant rain on Monday, July 10, 2023.
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