A total of 33 teams have been earmarked by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to undertake relief and rescue operations in Gujarat and Maharashtra ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone 'Biparjoy' near the Jakhau port in Kutch district, officials said on Wednesday.
The IMD issued a "Nowcast" warning, forecasting thunderstorms accompanied by lightning and intense spells of rain with gusty winds reaching 50-60 kmph at isolated places in Mumbai in the next three to four hours.
NDRF director general Atul Karwal told PTI that the teams are undertaking continuous familiarisation exercises and conducting simulation drills in the temple town to respond to any contingency.
Two dozen students and four teachers were on a picnic and taking a boat ride in the Harni lake when the tragedy occurred in the afternoon, they said.
Groups of relatives have gathered at the Tapovan tunnel, hoping that their loved ones will emerge alive from its mouth.
The vertical approach was one of the at least five options on which preparatory work had begun some days back, as anxiety mounted over the fate of the men trapped in the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand's Char Dham route.
A fresh team of 51 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel is being rushed to earthquake-hit Turkiye even as two teams present there have launched rescue operations at multiple collapsed structures, Director General of the force Atul Karwal said Wednesday.
The toll in Monday's temple collapse incident increased to 17 with rescue teams recovering one more body on Sunday.
The Punjab government has ordered the closure of schools till July 13 while in Chandigarh schools are closed till Thursday.
Seven bodies have been recovered in the operation that continued through the night, Sachin GIDC police station inspector Jignesh Chaudhari said.
After record rains wreaked havoc in Jammu and Kashmir over the past two days, the death toll in related incidents rose to 41, most of them victims of the landslide on a Vaishno Devi pilgrimage route, while there was some let-up in the showers on Wednesday, allowing relief efforts to pick up pace.
Two teams of the NDRF along with the fire brigade and police have been working relentlessly since the last two days to rescue the people trapped under the billboard that collapsed on a petrol pump in Chheda Nagar area of Ghatkopar on Monday evening due to gusty winds and unseasonal rains.
The monsoon spelt mayhem in several parts of the country on Monday, particularly Mumbai where local train services and flight operations were hit and everyday life disrupted as well as Assam that was grappling with floods yet again.
Rescuers are continuing the search for nearly 230 passengers of the ill-fated motor-boat that capsized in Brahmaputra River in Assam's Dhubri district on Monday evening.
Rescue efforts continue in Telangana for eight people trapped in a collapsed tunnel, but hopes for their survival are fading as experts from the Geological Survey of India and the National Geographical Research Institute have been brought in. The tunnel is filled with debris, making the rescue operation extremely difficult. Despite relentless efforts by the Indian Army, Navy, NDRF, and other agencies, no breakthrough has been achieved so far.
The nine-day rescue operations in which 23 bodies were extricated and 62 people rescued from the rubble of a blanket factory that collapsed on April 15, came to an end on Tuesday.
The bodies of three labourers were on Saturday pulled from the rubble of a wall that collapsed at a construction site in the Vasant Vihar area in New Delhi amid heavy rain, officials said.
The body of an eight-year-old boy who had fallen into a stormwater drain in Guwahati on Thursday, was recovered about 4 km downstream in Rajgarh area, police 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.
While rain intensity reduced on Tuesday compared to a day ago, affecting mainly districts in the Saurashtra region, administration carried out rescue and relief operations on a large scale, shifting thousands of people to shelters.
The death toll in the landslide at Irshalwadi hamlet in Maharashtra's Raigad district mounted to 27 on Saturday with the recovery of five more bodies from the debris on the third day of the search and rescue operation, a National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) official said.
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.
In addition to that, 68 people still remain missing, with 100 more sustaining injuries in the disaster.
The teams are equipped with inflatable boats, ropes and other rescue equipment.
The process of identification of victims by matching the DNA samples is currently underway, and the bodies will be handed over to their relatives once the process is complete.
Rescue operations continued through Tuesday and Wednesday in Joshimath, Rudraprayag, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand and in Shimla, Chamoli, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, for those trapped by landslides.
85 rescue and relief teams have been pre-positioned in 'vulnerable' states and all its 12 battalions across the country have been alerted and asked to be prepared to tackle any flood situation caused by heavy rains.
'I feel the murderers had done a recce of this place before murdering Raja.' 'It is isolated, there are no CCTV cameras.' 'It was a fit place to commit the crime.'
The Army, National Disaster Response Force and local rescue teams have been called in for the rescue work, the Kinnaur deputy commissioner said.
The situation in rain-battered Gujarat improved slightly on Thursday as the rainfall activity subsided, but Vadodara and some other parts of the state are still reeling under a flood-like situation due to overflowing rivers while the authorities continue the rescue and relief operations.
Security personnel at work inside the tunnel rushed out and heavy machines engaged in drilling through the debris and sludge inside were withdrawn.
Ten teams of the NDRF have begun full-fledged relief and rescue operations on the third day of the disaster in quake-hit Nepal.
Nine National Disaster Response Force teams were deployed for rescue operations following one of the worst railway disasters in India that killed at least 278 people and injured more than 900. According to official data, the force rescued 44 victims and retrieved 121 bodies from the spot.
The construction of a Bailey bridge to connect the landslide-hit areas, where several people are believed to be stranded, alongside the deployment of sniffer dogs and over 1,000 rescuers from Central and state emergency response teams conducting massive search operations, constitutes one of the largest rescue efforts in the Wayanad, devastated by a deadly calamity.
One more body was recovered on Thursday, taking the toll in multiple landslides in Mizoram's Aizawl district to 28, a police officer said.
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.
An NDRF personnel went through the passage, pushing a wheeled stretcher tied to a rope at the end of the tunnel and was pulled back up after completing the stretch.
The CRPF has lost 108 personnel to COVID-19, the highest among the central forces that function under the command of the Union home ministry, according to data.
Indian cricket fraternity reacts to Silkyara tunnel rescue
The team consisted of trainee mountaineers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and their trainers.
