"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.
The National Security Strategy document should flag all major issues concerning security strategy and provide guidelines to concerned departments to work out suitable action plans. Since the global and regional geopolitical canvas is dynamic, the NSS document should be deliberated at length before formulation and should be reviewed periodically, recommends Commodore Venugopal Menon (retd).
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam till Thursday.
A defence spokesperson said that nine persons were stranded on the terrace of a building close to the Ulhas river near Kalyan.
They said the incident occurred around 4 am when a 150-metre-long portion of the four-and-a-half-kilometer-long tunnel collapsed.
The Seismological department said that the quake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and lasted for about two minutes.
At the devastated Tapovan power project site rescuers worked nonstop even as the odds of finding the trapped workers alive seemed slim.
Landslides triggered by incessant rain snapped rail and road links, an official bulletin said.
According to the Jyotirmath administration, these cracks have increased in the last 15 days.
A major fire broke out inside the industrial area of Dombivli in Thane after a boiler exploded at the plant of a chemical company.
The pictures and videos of the locals wading through waist deep water in Bawana JJ colony area, waterlogged houses, school and hospital went viral on social media even as teams of engineers from Haryana and Delhi worked on a war footing to plug the breach.
'These are people whom very few give importance and they were doing a mammoth job for the nation.'
Hundreds of people are facing a shortage of food, safe drinking water and sanitation in Kathmandu following the natural disaster, according to eyewitnesses.
As we brace for unprecedented rates of urbanisation, it is crucial to ensure that illegal constructions and unauthorised land use are curbed, asserts Amit Kapoor.
The chief minister will visit Joshimath on Saturday, meet the affected people and hold a meeting with officials.
The torrential rain that took place between September 27 and 30 has created a flood-like situation in 15 districts of the state, including the state capital.
The 41 workers trapped in Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel for the last 11 days are likely to be rescued in the next few hours or by tomorrow, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) member Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said on Thursday evening.
What happened in Bengaluru is a wake-up call, no celebration of sport should ever come at the cost of human life, asserts veteran cricket correspondent K R Nayar.
The maximum damage has been reported from Mandi, Kangra and Chamba districts, he said, adding that so far 36 weather-related incidents have been reported from the state.
'You are talking as if Patna has been the only place which has suffered on account of heavy rain. What happened in Mumbai and America when these places were battered by similar downpour?'
The search operation was suspended around 6 pm on Friday due to heavy rains, an NDRF official said.
The Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority, in a tweet, said as per the latest updates #GajaCyclone is likely to have landfall between 8 pm and 11 pm on Thursday in all probability in Nagapattinam district.
Heavy downpour continued in various parts of Gujarat on Tuesday and six people died in rain-related incidents in the last 24 hours, raising the toll to 69 since June 1, officials said.
The five-storey building -- Tareq Garden -- in Mahad town, around 170 km from Mumbai, collapsed on Monday evening. According to a police official, the rescue operation was called off around 11.30 am on Wednesday.
Swirling floodwaters have paralysed normal life and marooned over 1.20 crore people.
Relief Commissioner Alok Pandey told reporters that the government is constantly working to ensure that there is no loss of life due to the weather phenomenon.
The operation went on for 66 hours after a giant 120 feet x 120 feet hoarding collapsed on a petrol pump in the Chheda Nagar area during gusty winds on Monday evening, the official said.
The death toll in the Ghatkopar hoarding collapse in Mumbai rose to 16 on Thursday with rescue personnel retrieving the bodies of a retired general manager of Air Traffic Control (ATC) and his wife, officials said.
The total number of people killed in flooding and landslides in the state this year has gone up to 76. While 50 people were killed in inundation, 26 died due to landslides.
'The Weather Channel argues that India faces the gravest challenge: Climate change-induced health vulnerability.' 'This is an issue often neglected, alerts Claude Arpi: "Prolonged summers, unpredictable rains, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels are the harsh realities of climate change in the country. These factors increase the frequency and severity of illnesses, pushing people into poverty, and forcing migration".'
Assam's flood situation remained critical on Tuesday with over 6.71 lakh people affected in 20 districts in the second wave of flooding this year, as the Indian Air Force (IAF) rescued 13 stranded fishermen from the severely-hit Dibrugarh district, an official said.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Thursday evening as a 'very severe cyclonic storm' with maximum wind speed reaching up to 150 kilometres per hour, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
About 1.82 lakh people have been evacuated to safe places by the rescue teams in last 48 hours.
Very heavy rains are expected over north Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim in the next 48 hours, with cyclonic storm Phailin now closer to the Chattisgarh-Odisha border, the National Disaster Management Authority has said.
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.
As the low-pressure area in the south-eastern Arabian Sea intensified into a severe depression on Friday, heavy rains lashed many parts of Kerala and huge tidal waves started hitting low-lying coastal areas.
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.
The storm is likely to impact Mumbai, Thane and other coastal districts of Maharashtra like Raigad and Palghar along with Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bhavnagar and Bharuch districts of Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Preparations for the impending cyclone were discussed at a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, a home ministry statement said.
National Disaster Response Force teams rescued more than 50 passengers including 16 badly trapped from the mangled bogies of Patna-Indore Express which derailed in Kanpur during the wee hours on Sunday.
The cyclone ravaged adjacent coasts of the state and Bangladesh between Sagar Island and Khepupara, near the southwest of Mongla in the neighbouring country, after its landfall process began at 8.30 pm on Sunday.
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