Pradhan also asserted that the fumes that were seen coming out was a 'technical' issue and there was no need to panic.
Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs on Wednesday, causing flooding on roads and rail tracks and disrupting suburban train services as the south-west monsoon arrived in the city.
The federal contingency force has committed a total of 112 teams for deployment in five states and the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands which are expected to be affected by the cyclone developing in the Bay of Bengal.
An NDRF team has a strength of about 45 personnel and each unit is equipped with tree and pole cutters, communication gadgets, inflatable boats and a small basic medical unit.
The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has directed its rescue teams to ensure that the country's major medical oxygen generation plants based in Odisha and West Bengal are 'running and alive' during Cyclone Yaas that is developing in the Bay of Bengal, a senior officer said.
This is Styrene gas that affects the central nervous system, throat, skin, eyes and some other parts of the body, he said.
NDRF, with the help of local authorities and police, has been conducting evacuation operations to minimise the potential damage from the cyclone.
The cyclonic storm is likely to move nearly westwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh-south Odisha coasts between Kalingapatnam and Gopalpur around Sunday evening, the Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD said.
Local residents, who were watching the operation with baited breath, cheered with joy after the boy was rescued.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
'We expect the movements to come down to a trickle or even to stop at all these places,' says NDRF DG Satya Pradhan.
On Thursday in Visakhapatnam, hundreds of villagers, most of them children suffered the consequences of the vapour leak like irritation in eyes, breathlessness, nausea and rashes, and over 100 people were admitted to government and private hospitals. Several police personnel, who came for the rescue operation, also suffered symptoms like breathlessness, irritation in eyes and fell unconscious.
After inaugurating a 10-bed make-shift hospital of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in Ghaziabad near Delhi, he said India began formulating its strategy against coronavirus from January 8 as soon as the world came to know about the outbreak of the disease.
The IMD director said, the cyclonic storm Tauktae in the Arabian sea is moving away from the Kerala coast and is now approaching the Karnataka coast.
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.
According to an official, two fresh deaths have been reported in Cuttack and Khurda districts of the state.
A multi-agency operation to rescue an estimated 34 people trapped inside a big tunnel at Tapovan was carried out overnight after a glacier burst-triggered deluge killed 10 people in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district while over 140 are missing, officials said on Monday.
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.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said saving lives and extending all help to the families of the deceased is the state government's priority.
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.
The state government has declared a holiday on Wednesday and Thursday for all private institutions, offices, non-essential services within Outer Ring Road here in view of rains.
Sportspeople across the country offered condolences to the families affected in the Visakhapatnam gas leak tragedy on Thursday.
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.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
India on Tuesday enlarged its relief and rescue operations in quake-hit Nepal beyond Kathmandu to the worst-affected epicenter areas and rushed Gorkha soldiers to remote places to assess the kind of assistance required.
The blaze at the Oil India Ltd's oil well is so massive that it can be seen from a distance of more than two kilometres, eyewitnesses said.
Concern is growing among healthcare experts who believe that if people do not follow the lockdown or social distancing seriously, the situation can quickly go out of control.
"I'm not doing any favour. I'm giving back to my country."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of the situation, and assured all possible assistance to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. The prime minister also chaired a meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to assess the situation.
An overloaded boat carrying 38 people capsized on Sunday close to the 'Pavitra Sangamam'.
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