The floods that engulfed the state of Jammu and Kashmir have been unprecedented in its history. In fact, the deluge of rains suffered by the state was at par --- and in some case, far worse --- than what was witnessed in Uttarakhand in June last year.
As the election approaches, the earthquake survivors and the scientists urge political parties to take note of warning signs before it's too late.
While incessant rain in the past 24 hours has wreaked havoc in parts of the northeast, triggering flash floods, the national capital experienced one of its hottest days.
With over 8.69 lakh people still in 2,287 relief camps, it is a subdued 'Onam', the harvest festival, in the state.
The Centre said that there was no legal provision to declare a disaster as a national calamity, amid demands for declaring the floods as a national disaster.
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.
With this allocation of portfolios, the Sharad Pawar-led NCP has got most of the 'plum' ministries.
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
A cyclonic circulation over Haryana was the trigger for the deadly dust storm that swept parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, weather experts said.
The Santacruz observatory recorded 286.4 mm rainfall during the 24-hour period ending at 8.30 am on Wednesday, making it the fourth highest rainfall in Mumbai since 1974, an Indian Meteorological Department official said.
Flood situation in West Bengal's six districts remain unchanged, even as the death toll rose to 17 with reports of eight more deaths from different districts on Friday.
In the Northeast, while three people died in Assam, two each lost their lives in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram in rain-related incidents.
The severe cyclonic storm, which brought in its wake heavy rain coupled with gale wind till early Sunday, uprooted hundreds of trees and snapped cables in Kolkata and in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, bring life to a near-halt.
In Assam, nearly 27.80 lakh people across 26 districts have been affected by the deluge. The deaths were reported from the Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Morigaon districts. The death toll due to floods and landslides this year has risen to 122.
The water level rose above the danger mark in Haridwar and Delhi and the level at Bhakra dam was a foot above the permissible mark.
Gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and high tidal waves swept the coastal belt of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa as Cyclone Tauktae hurtled northwards towards Gujarat on Sunday, leaving four people dead in Karnataka and two in Goa, damaging hundreds of houses, uprooting electricity poles and trees and forcing evacuation.
Apart from the chief minister and deputy chief minister, 13 cabinet and 10 ministers of state were allocated portfolios.
Experts say poor city planning and inefficient administration turned an unusually high rainfall into a disaster.
'Did the government learn any lesson from the disasters of 2008, 1987, 1975?' 'Certainly not!' 'They are making people believe that the 2017 flood was unexpected, so no preventive effort towards reducing the loss of human lives was to be expected from the government,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
More than 3,000 squads under health and local self-government departments have started the process of cleaning houses and public places, official sources said.
Rains will continue to batter Tamil Nadu for the next seven days and the next 48 hours are "very crucial", the IMD has said.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday addressed the first joint sitting of Parliament as mandatorily required under the Constitution after the general elections. The address is the political, economic and foreign policy road map of the Narendra Modi government and covers virtually all crucial areas.
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