More than 50 people have been killed and over two lakh others affected by the floods caused by torrential rain across Pakistan, officials said on Monday.
Despite low casualty figure, the storm left behind a trail of destruction as thousands of people lost their houses.
'Just because there is some misunderstanding, you cannot recall the chief secretary.' 'This is not a good development. This is an assault on federalism.'
Facing allegations from the Bharatiya Janata Party of not taking timely action to rescue Bihari pilgrims in Uttarakhand, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday made a veiled attack on his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi saying he was no 'Rambo' but took steps for assisting pilgrims there.
An overarching law governing public healthcare is a glaring gap in India's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. In India it is left to individuals to quarantine themselves voluntarily. Moreover, the 123-year old The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, governs healthcare emergencies in India.
A devastating fire at a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata that claimed nine lives turned into the epicentre of a political slugfest on Tuesday, with the Trinamool Congress government and the Bharatiya Janata Party pointing accusatory fingers at the Railways and the state administration respectively, even as the bereaved families grieved at the loss of their near ones.
The intensity of the blast was so high that window panes in adjoining buildings were shattered and shocked people were seen running helter-skelter, an eyewitness said.
Private weather agency Skymet said Mumbai is at 'serious risk of flooding' between July 3 and 5.
Cyclone Hudhud pounded the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha with heavy rain and winds of almost 200 kmph on Sunday killing four people and left a trail of destruction with Vishakapatnam where the very severe storm made landfall the worst hit.
The deep depression in North Andaman Sea and its neighbourhood intensified into a cyclonic storm on Wednesday and is likely to cross Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast on October 12.
Apprehending trouble in the state especially in violence-affected Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in the aftermath of declaration of results of election in the state on Friday, the Assam government has requested the army to be in stand by for quick deployment, if the need arises while helicopter surveillance is being continued in vulnerable areas of the violence-affected BTC areas and along India-Bhutan border.
The flood situation remained critical in Assam, affecting 7.35 lakh people in 18 districts where one lakh hectares of cropland have been inundated by the surging waters of the swollen Bahmaputra and its tributaries.
Restoration of road and tele-communication network in the Kashmir Valley, ravaged by floods, will take three to five days. The Centre has directed free flow of transport via Manali and Leh to Srinagar, the only available surface network, a top central government official said on Monday.
A portion of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Sunday, triggering an avalanche and a deluge in the Alaknanda river system that washed away hydroelectric stations, leaving at least seven people dead and 125 missing who are feared dead.
'Since many people are vaccinated, this virus is now concentrating on the throat and the nose and replicating fast and transmitting also very fast.' 'That's because the current vaccines will not be able to fight it when it is in the throat, nose or the mouth.'
An FIR has also been lodged against boat operator in Sonpur Police Station.
The Bill was supported by the members across party lines, however, some suggested to add in its purview hospital sanitary staff, ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers and 'Corona warriors' in emergency services such as police and personnel from other departments.
Heavy rains in the last three days triggered flash floods in parts of Bihar, where 41 people have died so far, and inundated large areas in Assam and North Bengal, paralysing normal life and snapping rail link to the Northeast from the rest of the country.
A 13.2 MW small hydro project on the Rishiganga river was swept away in the glacier burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday, but there is no danger of floods in the downstream areas as the water level has been contained.
Four people have died including one each in Delhi, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra.
The police lodged a suo motu case against unknown persons in connection with their involvement in the mishap, a police officer said.
The weatherman said when 'Amphan' makes the landfall between West Bengal's Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph. The gale-force wind, blowing at a speed of 240 to 250 kmph and gusting to 275 kmph at one point, had lost intensity and was moving at a speed of 200 to 210 kmph, gusting to 230 kmph on Tuesday evening.
After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the government had on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15.
In a curious turn of events on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked Rajeev Topno, a 1996 batch Indian Administrative Service officer from the Gujarat cadre and a part of the Prime Minister's Office under former PM Manmohan Singh, as private secretary.
A total of 147 people, including patients and visitors, were rescued after the fire broke out at the ESIC Kamgar Hospital at Marol in suburban Andheri, said an official of the Disaster Management Cell of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The PM held bilateral meetings with three ASEAN leaders, including his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and discussed key bilateral and regional issues.
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.
Parts of Raigad, Ratnagiri districts in the coastal Konkan region and Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra, have been worst affected by the floods. Besides that, heavy rains have been pounding parts of Satara district.
At least 15 people have died in heavy floods and landslides triggered by continuous rain for the last three days in Assam, where airforce helicopters, army, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force have been pressed into service for rescue work, officials said.
The exponential number of downloads can be attributed to a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking people to have the app on their mobiles, combined with the government's push for downloading of the app through other channels, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Fresh guidelines issued by the Union home ministry on Wednesday permit industries operating in rural areas to run from April 30 with strict social distancing norms.
An eyewitness said some people in a minibus and private cars were trapped.
Cyclone Nisarga slammed Maharashtra coast with wind speeds of up to 120 kmph, making landfall at 12.30 pm at Alibaug near Mumbai. The process was completed by 2.30 pm, a senior India Meteorological Department official said. Alibaug witnessed wind speeds of up to 120 kilometres per hour. It weakened into a 'deep depression' late on Wednesday evening, the IMD said.
Alert to the looming threat from the 'Omicron' variant, states began to re-tighten curbs and urgently trace people who arrived from abroad in the last one month while a demand to not allow flights from the affected countries was made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
After a brief suspension due to bad weather early in the morning, the rescue operations in rain-hit Uttarakhand resumed on Sunday on a war footing to evacuate 22,000 pilgrims still stranded in high altitude areas amid a MeT department warning of light to moderate rains in the region from Monday.
'There's also a possibility of the cyclonic system changing its course, thus avoiding a landfall in Odisha'
The chief minister said the Delhi government was implementing from November 19 its decision to reserve 80 per cent of ICU beds in private hospitals for COVID-19 patients.
The Indian contingent of more than 300 navy personnel was assisting in the relief, with divers searching the brackish waters and medical teams seeing patients in makeshift tents set up at shelters.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy announced an ex gratia payment of Rs 1 crore each to the kin of those killed in the incident.
At least 200 people were killed and more than 1,300 others injured today as a powerful 7.5- magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in 10 years --rocked Pakistan, sending severe shock waves as far as Punjab and PoK.
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