With the COVID-19 positivity rate touching 0.55 percent, the Delhi government has decided to re-impose night curfew from Monday, according to sources.
Flood waters today engulfed 22 villages in Assam's Bongaingaon and eroded 60 houses in Morigaon district displacing scores of people as the Bramhaputra river continued to flow above the danger level.
IMD director general Mrutunjay Mohapatra said that cyclone Asani has already achieved maximum stage of intensification and is gradually getting weakened.
The India Meteorological Department said rainfall would be accompanied by gale wind speed reaching 140 to 150 kmph and gusting to 165 kmph along and off Odisha and north Andhra Pradesh coasts.
A stretch about 50 metres long on the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway near Pursari village is showing signs of land subsidence with cracks appearing on it.
The home minister held a video conference with Chief Ministers of Gujarat and Maharashtra -- Vijay Rupani and Uddhav Thackeray respectively -- and Administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Praful Patel, and assured them all central help in view of the impending cyclone, an official statement said in New Delhi.
The directorate of education also said that students and staff must wear masks and maintain social distancing to the extent possible.
The Centre has assured all help to Odisha and Andhra Pradesh where a "very severe" cyclone is expected to hit on Saturday and sent nearly 500 personnel of National Disaster Response Force for relief and rescue operations.
All members of the National Disaster Management Authority, appointed by the previous United Progressive Alliance government, have been asked to resign.
A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit southern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday, toppling hundreds of buildings and killing at least 1,300 people. The toll is expected to rise further.
The India Meteorological Department on Friday predicted that Delhi will likely receive light to moderate rain accompanied by thunderstorms for the next 4-5 days.
According to an order issued by Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev, the night curfew will also be imposed from 11 pm on January 1 to 6 am on January 2.
The Centre-appointed committee on Saturday launched its probe into the Gas Authority of India Limited pipeline fire tragedy in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh that has claimed 16 lives.
The COVID-19 positivity rate in the national capital has jumped from 0.5 per cent to 5.33 per cent in two weeks.
Twenty-four more people were killed on Saturday as floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains inundated northern Pakistan, raising the overall death toll in the flooding to 46.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were roped in to rescue hundreds of stranded people, they said.
Candidates or their agents who have received both the doses of Covid-19 vaccine can also enter the counting hall on May 2 when votes for Assam, West Bengal, Kerala, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu will be counted, according to the guidelines issued on Wednesday.
In a communication to all states and union territories, the NDMA said due to several weeks of lockdown and the closure of industrial units, it is possible that some of the operators might not have followed the established standard operating procedures.
More than 39.8 lakh people in 27 of the 33 districts in the state were affected by the deluge on Thursday.
The human toll in the floods and relentless rain across the country reached almost 200 by Thursday, even as thousands in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Odisha, West Bengal, and elsewhere were forced out of their homes into temporary shelters.
"This is our most massive deployment in any flood disaster till date. Now we have close to 1,600 personnel with 21 officers and 200 rubberised inflatable boats. We have rescued over 16,000 people to safer locations till now," the DG said.
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.
Tope's comments came a day after the Centre asked the state to align its order with the SOPs issued by the Union health ministry.
LIVE! Incessant rains: Red Alert in 5 Kerala districts
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday conducted an aerial survey of rain-ravaged areas of Uttarakhand to asses the damage which the state government has pegged at Rs 7,000 crore.
The order of five-day mandatory institutional quarantine was opposed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Deputy Manish Sisodia in a meeting of Delhi State Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Saturday.
'The situation is especially serious in major hotspot districts or emerging hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat (Gujarat), Thane (Maharashtra), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu),' the MHA statement said.
'With profound sorrow we confirm that an Indian student lost his life in shelling in Kharkiv this morning,' the MEA tweeted.
"Six bodies have been retrieved from the accident site so far. The rescue teams are still on job," an NDRF spokesperson said.
Pershant Gujjar and his 40 supporters have also been booked for holding the meeting without permission on Sunday, Kakroli Station House Officer (SHO) Sunil Sharma said.
According to reports from the states, several congregation participants are yet to show up before authorities.
Intense monsoon rains brought normal life to a standstill in several parts of eastern and central Rajasthan, flooding out roads, rail tracks, low-lying residential areas and hospitals and claiming seven lives since Sunday night.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde led the nation in paying tributes to the twenty bravehearts, who died in Tuesday's chopper crash while rescuing stranded people in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday appealed to rival leaders to "not do politics" over Chhath Puja, even as he asserted that the restrictions imposed on its celebrations at riverbanks and other public places were for the safety of people amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Taliban militants have publicly beheaded a man for allegedly spying for the security forces in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.
The government is planning to airlift excavators to flood-ravaged Uttarakhand regions for clearing boulders and debris accumulated in Kedarnath.
The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Uttarakhand government not to force people, caught in flash floods, to walk long distances and said that they should be air lifted to safer places.
The government has decided to deploy more helicopters in Uttarakhand to rescue over 60,000 people still trapped in the rain-ravaged hill state and expedite relief operations.
The deep depression in Bay of Bengal that crossed the coast close to Kakinada in East Godavari district on Tuesday morning left a trail of devastation as it brought with it a massive downpour in several districts of Andhra Pradesh.
Night curfew will continue but from 11 pm instead of 10 pm.
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