As Cyclone Dana barrels toward the coasts of Odisha, threatening to impact nearly half of the state's population, the government is racing against time to execute a massive evacuation plan aimed at relocating about 10 lakh people in several coastal districts to safety. In West Bengal, the cyclone is set to bring heavy rainfall in several southern West Bengal districts, including Kolkata, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
"The international community should get onboard so that the environmental balance is not destroyed," he said.
Shivani, from Ratanbasai village, and Radheshyam, from Balupura hamlet, eloped on June 3, he said.
Eight bodies have been recovered from the debris of a stone quarry that collapsed in south Mizoram's Hnahthial district on Monday, an official said Tuesday.
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.
The death toll in the avalanche triggered by the bursting of a glacier in Chamoli has gone up to 58 as a total of 11 bodies are recovered from the Tapovan tunnel, whereas 146 people are still missing, said Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday.
'Joro shoro se rescue operation chal raha hai.'
Just when it seemed that Bollywood had recovered with multiple big hits in 2023, it all came down in 2024 with a flurry of flops, disasters and mega disasters.
Thirteen teams of the National Disaster Response Force and three of the State Disaster Response Force were deployed in vulnerable districts of the state, a disaster management department report said.
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.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and other agencies resumed the search and rescue operation for the fourth day on Sunday at Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district where a massive landslide led to the death of at least 27 people, officials said.
The army rescue teams have been operating throughout the night along with the teams from civil defence, police and the NDRF, trying to remove the debris from the affected area.
Eight people were killed and over 60 injured on Monday when a huge iron hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump in Ghatkopar area of Mumbai amid rain and gusty wind, while several others are feared trapped, officials said.
A sudden downpour in Delhi caught citizens off guard and caused heavy waterlogging and traffic jams on Tuesday while Mumbai breathed a sigh of relief as showers stopped a day after heavy rain brought the metropolis to its knees.
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.
'Had it collapsed on the railway tracks a major disaster could have occurred if a train arrived at that time'
Ravi, son of a road construction worker, fell into the borewell on Wednesday afternoon while playing near Thorandale village, 70 km from Pune.
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.
With the recovery of 3 more bodies from under the massive landslide debris at Malin village near Pune, the death toll in the calamity has climbed to 109, even as the NDRF operation to locate possible survivors entered the sixth day on Monday amid intermittent showers.
The ministry of defence in September 2021 signed a Rs 21,935-crore contract with Airbus Defense and Space SA, Spain for supply of 56 aircraft.
Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, better known as P S Golay, on Friday said that the Himalayan state has incurred damages worth thousands of crores of rupees in the flash flood.
National Disaster Response Force teams were rushed from Delhi to the affected areas in both Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts to help in the rescue operations along with along with State Disaster Response Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police and local agencies, officials said.
The massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river triggered by a glacial burst in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Sunday came as a grim reminder of the Kedarnath deluge of 2013 which led to widespread devastation in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region.
Some 50 people have been rescued so far from cable cars which were left dangling mid-air after a malfunction of the ropeway which saw trolley cars colliding on Sunday 4 pm.
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam till Thursday.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were roped in to rescue hundreds of stranded people, they said.
While India's National Disaster Response Force miraculously rescued a six-year-old girl and made headlines, a lot of the credit for the daring rescue ought to be reserved for Romeo and Julie, part of the NDRF's dog squad.
Many low-lying areas in West Bengal's sub-Himalayan region were reeling from a flood-like situation while major rivers in Bihar were flowing above the danger level at several places as unabated heavy rain lashed the country's eastern parts on Sunday.
The successful effort to combat Cyclone Phailin threatens to put disaster mitigation, and a fundamental overhaul of how disaster management in India is structured, on the back-burner, says Anand Sarkar.
At least 12 passengers were killed and two others missing after a Maharashtra state transport bus fell into the Narmada river from a bridge in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district on Monday, officials said.
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.
All armed forces including the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and Indian Coast Guard have made necessary preparation to provide assistance to the local people of Gujarat.
Chaired by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha and attended by chiefs of the three services, secretaries of home, defence and others, the National Crisis Management Committee took stock of the prevailing situation in Kerala and directed all concerned to ensure continued assistance to the state government to meet the crisis, a home ministry spokesperson said.
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 Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force have deployed six helicopters and one Dornier aircraft to help in rescue operations at the Kerala temple where a fire has left over 90 dead.
As many as 21,080 villagers from Vasai, Palghar, Dahanu and Talasari talukas, which are likely to be affected by the cyclonic storm, have been shifted to safer places, district collector Dr Kailas Shinde 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.
Several kutcha houses, temporary shades were destroyed, while hundreds of trees and many electrical poles were uprooted and roofs of some structures were blown away by the storm.
More than 170 personnel have been tested till now after they returned to their base in Cuttack, Odisha, from the cyclone-affected West Bengal.
Four National Disaster Response Force teams are engaged in rescue work, he added. The village has around 50 houses, of which 17 were buried under the landslide, the official said.
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