Four people were killed and at least 10 injured Monday morning after a fire broke out in a hotel here, prompting authorities to issue orders for demolition of the four-storey building after following the 'due process'.
A total of 113 teams were deployed by the federal contingency force in the two states and adjoining areas for launching relief and rescue in the wake of the cyclone.
Airlines have been advised to reschedule services, to the convenience of passengers.
During the heavy rains through the week here and other regions of Tamil Nadu not only inflatable boats, but preparedness, determination and presence of mind came in handy for personnel including policemen and women, civic and forest workers who rescued people, animals and snakes.
The body of the trapped miner was spotted on January 16 and efforts were on to pull it out of the shaft of the coal mine filled with water.
Dominic Xavier mulls over the intriguing puzzle why the PM-CARES fund is opposed to the transparency guaranteed by the RTI.
With the tropical cyclone Tauktae set to cross the Gujarat coast and make a landfall as an 'extremely severe cyclonic storm' by Monday night, the state government has shifted over 1.5 lakh people to safer places and mobilised disaster response teams.
Nearly 6,000 passengers were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed following heavy rains, while incessant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state, including around Mumbai, as authorities called in NDRF to help the administration in rescue efforts.
The accident occurred when the private boat 'Ma Kamala' was headed to Majuli from Nimati Ghat and the government-owned ferry 'Tripkai' was coming from the riverine island.
The bodies of 13 people who were killed in a landslide at Plaupally in Koottikkal village (Kanjirapally Taluk, Kottayam District) were recovered.
At present, 2,265 villages were inundated and 1,12,667.06 hectares of crop area has been damaged across Assam, the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said.
The IMD also issued a red alert in the same 10 districts for August 3 also.
There were no reports of loss of life due to the cyclone which uprooted trees. Incidents of wall collapse were reported from some parts of Tamil Nadu, state Revenue Minister R B Udhayakumar said.
Here's a glimpse of how the massive rescue operation was carried out by the agencies.
On Thursday in Visakhapatnam, hundreds of villagers, most of them children suffered the consequences of the vapour leak like irritation in eyes, breathlessness, nausea and rashes, and over 100 people were admitted to government and private hospitals. Several police personnel, who came for the rescue operation, also suffered symptoms like breathlessness, irritation in eyes and fell unconscious.
In an unprecedented measure, the Maharashtra government requested defence officials to arrange airlift of the stranded passengers of the 17412 Mahalaxmi Express.
An injured soldier told reporters from the hospital that when the building collapsed, there were 35 army personnel inside it, of whom 30 were Junior Commissioned Officers and five were soldiers.
However, the National Disaster Response Force, which has been engaged in the rescue operation since the day of the tragedy on December 13 last, will continue with their services.
Heavy rains last week caused massive floods and landslides in large parts of the state, especially in the coastal Konkan and Western Maharashtra regions.
Over 20,000 people were evacuated to safer places in these three districts. State capital Mumbai too witnessed water-logging in many areas after overnight rains on Thursday.
Three more bodies were recovered from the National Thermal Power Corporation's flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project site on Saturday taking the toll in the February 7 glacial disaster in Uttarakhand to 65, officials said.
The Army on Sunday deployed four columns and two medical teams in the rescue of people affected by a massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river after a part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off at Joshimath in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, officials said.
In a statement issued in Lucknow, the UP government said, 'Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed that the National Security Act be slapped against the accused persons. He also directed that loss of public money during the construction work be recovered from the contractor and engineers.'
A Nepalese woman was miraculously rescued alive by Indian rescuers 50 hours after being buried under the rubble following the devastating earthquake that jolted the country, killing over 5,000 people.
The Kumaon region, under which Nainital falls, has been the worst hit by the rains which began Sunday night, killing at least 46 people in the state as houses collapsed and bridges were washed away by swollen rivers.
Incessant showers caused landslides and floods in various parts of the country leaving at least 17 people dead on Wednesday while thousands more were forced to move to safety as rivers swelled and water reservoirs filled up fast.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
The ministry of home affairs has held multiple meetings, the latest being early this month, to thrash out the issues delaying the implementation of the policy.
'My father, mother and other relatives died in the landslide'
A series of flash floods in Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh killed at least 16 people on Wednesday and damaged several residential houses, standing crops and a mini power plant, officials said.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force started landing in Gujarat with the help of the Indian Air Force to undertake preventive evacuation of people living on the west coast, an IAF official said.
The fire department said the four-storey building, which did not have a fire safety certificate, had a single entry and exit point.
Dramatic visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
The Indian Meteorological Department, meanwhile, warned of intense spell of 30 to 50 mm rainfall per hour with strong winds in Mumbai and suburban areas.
Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force consisting of over 60 personnel reached on Friday morning, while 12 personnel from the State Disaster Response Force are already at the site.
The entire area has been cordoned off and National Disaster Management Authority has also been informed about the incident.
Schools and colleges in various tehsils of Pune declared a holiday on Thursday in view of the deluge.
22 bodies, 13 from Kottayam district and 9 from Idukki were recovered from various rain-hit areas while National Disaster Response Force teams continued their rescue operations.
Babu after reaching there, slipped and fell and got trapped between rocks on the mountain face
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
