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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reviewed the preparedness to deal with the situation arising out of the likely formation of Cyclone Jawad that is expected to hit the North Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast and directed officials to take every possible measure to ensure that people are safely evacuated.
The Kerala government has set up a web site, keralarescue.in, to coordinate relief and aid for the floods-affected people. It has also set up a website for online transfer of donations towards flood relief.
Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday evening with a wind speed of 115-125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph as heavy rains lashed the coastal region, where several areas plunged into darkness due to power cuts and a large number of trees, electric poles and hoardings got uprooted.
The jawan said he used his mobile phone light to locate hurt and trapped passengers and took them to safety.
This is the first time since Independence that a new operational branch is being created, Chaudhari said in his speech on the occasion of 90th anniversary celebrations of the IAF.
Despite adverse weather conditions and widespread inundation in affected areas, a total of seven naval rescue teams departed by road for deployment to the Ratnagiri and Raigarh districts on July 22, 2021 from Mumbai, said Indian Navy.
The operation to pull out a six-year old boy trapped in an abandoned borewell at a farm in nearby Sulikeri village in Karnataka's Bagalkot district was halted on the sixth day on Friday as his mother led a protest by villagers seeking an end to it.
The number of houses that have developed cracks has now risen to 826 out of which 165 are in the "unsafe zone", a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority said.
At least 21 persons have died and thousands were marooned in villages across eight districts of Uttar Pradesh where release of water from dams in Nepal have caused major floods, even as large parts of the state were heading towards a drought-like situation due to scanty monsoon rain.
The teams will be in addition to the 56 such contingents which are undertaking flood combat operations in these two states, besides Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
With the threat of disease outbreak lurking in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, efforts have been initiated on a war-footing to provide medical staff and medicines even as rescue operations were slightly hampered on Sunday due to return of rains in the Valley.
According to officials, the Ganga was flowing at 463.20 metres following which water filled up in Sangam Ghat, Ramkund, Dhaneshwar Ghat and Fuladi Ghat. There was also a tremendous jump in the water level of the Ganga after 2,000-3,000 cusecs of water was released from the dam of the GVK hydroelectric project built on the Alaknanda river.
In one of the worst natural disasters in Kerala, at least 123 persons were killed and 128 injured in massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Wayanad on Tuesday. With hundreds trapped under the debris, sparking fears of mounting fatalities, rescue agencies were racing against time to pull out any survivors.
The Brahmaputra and Barak rivers along with their tributaries are in spate, even as floodwaters started receding from a few areas, they said.
India on Tuesday pressed six more teams of National Disaster Response Force personnel into its relief and rescue operations in Nepal.
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam till Thursday.
Modi called for timely evacuation of those involved in off-shore activities.
Around 1,500 villages across Uttar Pradesh are trying to struggle to stay afloat after flood fury hit them hard due to the release of overflowing water from dams in Nepal last Sunday.
The weather system over the South Andaman Sea and the adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal is very likely to move north-westwards and strengthen into a depression by Saturday, the Met Department said.
The administration is geared up for more showers as the India meteorological department has warned of heavy to very heavy rains with isolated extremely heavy rains in several districts of the state till Thursday morning.
'We waded through the wet mud into the school, and what we saw were dead bodies strewn all over.' 'We could also see parts of human bodies buried under the wet mud.' 'It was a sight I will never forget in my life. Total devastation everywhere.'
'Except that the population was much less.' 'I remember my uncle and family moving away from the base of a hill whenever it rained for more than a couple of days without a dry day in between.' 'Perhaps the older generations knew if it rained for more than a certain time, they must pack up to a camp or to a relative.' 'As some of the interviews of the survivors on the Malayalam television channels show, the elderly people had a premonition a tragedy would happen, and those who acted on those premonitions survived.'
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.
A packed beyond capacity bus carrying passengers returning to work after Diwali fell into a deep gorge in Uttarakhand's Almora district on Monday, killing at least 36 of the over 60 people on board.
Hail and rainstorm killed 160 people in 11 provincial regions, mainly along the mighty Yangtze River and its distributaries, and have left 28 missing, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Army and air force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations.
The maximum death toll has been reported from Idukki district, where 43 people have lost their lives so far, as per official estimates. 28 deaths were reported in Malappuram and 27 in Thrissur.
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.
Many families in the affected area are finding it hard to sever their emotional ties with their homes and move out.
Meanwhile, the administration claimed it was fully prepared to deal with fresh fires in case they break out anywhere in the state due to a change in the weather.
Around 150 NDRF personnel have been scanning the river on speed boats. But the strong current in the swollen river has made their task difficult.
Gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and high tidal waves swept the coastal belts of Maharashtra and Goa as Cyclone Tauktae hurtled northwards towards Gujarat.
Five more bodies were found on Wednesday morning from two trouble-torn districts of Assam, taking the toll in the violence unleashed by ultras to 41.
The number of subsidence-affected homes rose to 678 while 27 more families were evacuated to safety, a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority in Chamoli said, adding so far 82 families have been shifted to safe locations in the town.
The disaster management department said that the state government has urged the Indian Air Force to send a helicopter for air-dropping of food packets and other relief material in marooned areas.
Relatively a lesser degree of damage, including those to houses marked the landfall of cyclonic storm Mandous in Tamil Nadu and at least four people were killed in rain-related incidents, authorities said in Chennai on Saturday.
Reddy directed the officials to treat the storm as a major challenge to avoid loss of life and property as the winds are expected to blow gales reaching speeds of up to 110 kilometres per hour.
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.
According to the Jyotirmath administration, these cracks have increased in the last 15 days.
