'These are people whom very few give importance and they were doing a mammoth job for the nation.'
Ten more bodies were recovered from the site of an avalanche in Uttarkashi, taking the death toll to 26, the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering said on Friday.
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The decision was taken in a high-level review meeting chaired by principal secretary to prime minister PK Mishra.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The state government has begun preparations to deal with the fallout of the cyclone as it will bring very strong wind and heavy rainfall in the region, officials said.
Near the temple, a group of locals shouted 'Murdabad' slogans in protest when Chouhan was on way to console the victims' families.
'I would put my hand in the ground and have a little listen to what the mountain was doing.' 'Actually, it was still collapsing.' 'And there was a very real possibility that at some stage, without warning, the collapse could continue -- and continue across us, the people who were doing the rescue and also across to the men on the other side, who were being rescued.'
Relatively a lesser degree of damage, including those to houses marked the landfall of cyclonic storm Mandous in Tamil Nadu and at least four people were killed in rain-related incidents, authorities said in Chennai on Saturday.
The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers along with their tributaries are in spate, even as floodwaters started receding from a few areas, they said.
The girl fell into the well around 9 pm and some people climbed down to rescue her while others were standing on the parapet wall around it to help them, a police official said. The wall suddenly crashed, throwing those standing on it into the water, he said, adding that several of them were feared trapped under the rubble.
The chief minister will visit Joshimath on Saturday, meet the affected people and hold a meeting with officials.
A series of cloudbursts hit different parts of Uttarakhand early on Saturday killing four people while 10 went missing as rivers breached their banks and washed away bridges, officials said.
Earlier on Saturday, six bodies were recovered and two more were retrieved a short time later, the police said.
Relief Commissioner Alok Pandey told reporters that the government is constantly working to ensure that there is no loss of life due to the weather phenomenon.
In Punjab, more than 9,000 people were evacuated in Patiala, Rupnagar, Moga, Ludhiana, Mohali, SBS Nagar and Fatehgarh Sahib districts, officials said on Tuesday.
Twenty-seven mountaineers remained missing on Wednesday after rescue workers brought 14 injured members of their team to safety, a day after an avalanche claimed 10 lives in Uttarkashi.
The Northern Railways said it has cancelled around 17 trains and diverted around 12 others, while traffic has been suspended at four locations due to waterlogging.
Heavy downpour continued in various parts of Gujarat on Tuesday and six people died in rain-related incidents in the last 24 hours, raising the toll to 69 since June 1, officials said.
The cruise which was scheduled to dock at the shore for the tourists to visit Chirand, an archaeological site, got stuck because of water deficiency in the Ganges near the Doriganj area of the district.
Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday evening with a wind speed of 115-125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph as heavy rains lashed the coastal region, where several areas plunged into darkness due to power cuts and a large number of trees, electric poles and hoardings got uprooted.
Police said around half-a-dozen dumper trucks and some machines were buried under the debris caused by the landslide which occurred around 9 am in Tosham block.
Landslides triggered by incessant rain snapped rail and road links, an official bulletin said.
Odisha is bracing for heavy rainfall early next week under the impact of a possible cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, which is likely to skirt the state and move towards West Bengal and Bangladesh, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday.
Officials in districts bordering Maharashtra have been asked to maintain contact with their counterparts there regarding the release of water from dams, following reports of heavy rains in the neighboring states.
In Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah assessed the situation in Joshimath and steps taken to ameliorate people's hardship at a meeting attended by Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, R K Singh, Bhupendra Yadav and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and top officials.
In the last 24 hours, eight people have died after drowning in flood waters -- two each in Barpeta and Karimganj districts, one each in Darrang, Hailakandi, Nalbari and Sonitpur districts and eight people are still missing.
Assam reeled under devastating floods caused by incessant rain, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking stock of the situation and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visiting several relief camps sheltering affected people on Saturday, officials said.
The over a century-old bridge, which had reopened five days ago after extensive repairs and renovation, was crammed with people when it collapsed around 6.30 pm on Sunday.
Bikers pushing their two-wheelers that were stuck and pedestrians struggling to navigate through knee-deep water was a common sight in some places.
Nearly 86 lakh people in the state's 32 districts have been affected by heavy rain and subsequent floods this year, bringing life to a screeching halt in many parts.
The Navy has has kept five flood teams and three diving teams on stand-by in Mumbai, the official said. These teams, trained and equipped for rescue operations, are stationed at various naval areas across Mumbai and can provide early response over a larger area, he said.
The torrential rain that took place between September 27 and 30 has created a flood-like situation in 15 districts of the state, including the state capital.
Many families in the affected area are finding it hard to sever their emotional ties with their homes and move out.
Resumption of 'Char Dham yatra' after a gap of two Covid-marred years is a welcome development for thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on it, but the death of 78 pilgrims on way to the Himalayan temples in less than a month is causing concern.
Tirumala, the abode of Lord Venkateswara, was caught in a massive flood of unprecedented scale on Thursday, leaving hundreds of pilgrims stranded even as a heavy downpour under the influence of a depression in Bay of Bengal battered the temple-town Tirupati and many parts of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh.
'All hydropower projects in the Himalayan region must be stopped.' 'Joshimath is not alone.'
The number of subsidence-affected homes rose to 678 while 27 more families were evacuated to safety, a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority in Chamoli said, adding so far 82 families have been shifted to safe locations in the town.
Sujith Wilson had fallen into the disused farm borewell while playing near his house in Nadukattupatti on Friday evening, and various central and state agencies were called in to rescue him.
'The problem is that all this reconstruction work is being monitored by the prime minister himself with inputs being provided directly by the PMO so nobody in the state government dare contradict them even if their suggestions are totally contrary to what the ecology of this region requires.'
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