A six-inch pipe has been laid at the Silkyara tunnel through which nutritious food and medicines could be supplied to the 41 labourers, trapped for over a week after parts of the under-construction structure collapsed following a landslide.
Rescue operations were underway in three subdivisions of Darjeeling district where multiple landslides have claimed 38 lives besides washing away highways and damaging homes.
While Ekta Bhardwaj, 31, died Thursday night, the body of Sunita Srivastava was recovered on Friday, officials said, adding that operations by rescue personnel at the incident site are still on.
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.
"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.
Nine more people have died as heavy rains lashed Uttar Pradesh for the third day, taking the death toll to 28, while a red alert has been sounded on Tuesday in six districts including the worst-hit Barabanki and Gonda.
Many families in the affected area are finding it hard to sever their emotional ties with their homes and move out.
Eighty-year-old Pratima Devi has been taking care of over 200 street dogs for over 30 years.
Tourism is badly affected. Entire apple orchards have been washed away. 2 million people are threatened with loss of livelihood.
Incessant rains unleashed more death and destruction on Monday in parts of north India, with 37 people killed in landslides and other rain-related incidents in the last two days even as the Army and NDRF teams stepped in to intensify the relief and rescue operations.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said efforts are on to rescue the 300 stranded people, and they could be airlifted as the weather clears. Power and water supply has been snapped in several areas.
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.
"On August 16 night, just as we reached an abandoned government hospital for rest after four days of non-stop work, the local police officer, villagers and NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) officials came to us, asking to save the life of a woman who had just given birth," he said.
It was a special-purpose mobile gantry crane used in bridge construction and to install precast box girders in highway construction projects.
'Since there is no photo-op, or quick fix solutions, politicians do not want to address climate change. It is very unfashionable.'
'Above 2,000 metres the gradient of the Himalayas is very steep and if you build any infrastructure (roads, dams, hydro power projects) in these regions, it will not be able to sustain these events (the onslaught of debris that comes down with great speeds).'
Three national highways in Kutch, Navsari and Dang districts were blocked due to damage caused by rains. Fifty one state highways and over 400 panchayat roads have also been damaged, state Disaster Management Minister Rajendra Trivedi told reporters.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were roped in to rescue hundreds of stranded people, they said.
The horrific disaster that has struck Uttrakhand has been assessed as a mix of natural and man-made. In fact, the various media analyses indicate we were asking for it and there were enough warnings and indications that this would happen, says Lt Gen (retd) Prakash Katoch.
The earthquake took place at 03:41:01 (UTC+05:30) at a depth of 18.5 km. The magnitude of the earthquake caused pulses to travel from Sidi Ifni in the south to Rabat in the north and beyond.
The Army on Sunday deployed four columns and two medical teams in the rescue of people affected by a massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river after a part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off at Joshimath in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, officials said.
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.
Major rivers in Ratnagiri district, including Jagbudi, Vashishti, Kodavali, Shastri, Bav are flowing above the danger level. As a result, Khed, Chiplun, Lanja, Rajapur, Sangameshwar towns and nearby areas have been affected and residents are being shifted to safer places.
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.
Near the temple, a group of locals shouted 'Murdabad' slogans in protest when Chouhan was on way to console the victims' families.
Many villages were cut off as several roads connecting them were inundated.
At least six people were killed and dozens were missing after a massive landslide occurred at a railway construction site in Manipur's Noney district, officials said.
The fire broke out in the car repair garage in M Nirufehi, located near the Maaveyo Mosque, around 12:30 am.
According to the National Earthquake Monitoring and Research Centre, the earthquake with an epicentre in Jajarkot district was recorded at 11.47 pm.
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.
'I saw people hanging on to the bridge and later falling into the water as their grip loosened and they slipped into the water.'
The Indian Army has been called for rescue operation and four people have been rescued till now.
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.
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.
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.
Rescue workers waged a grim battle with a hostile weather and difficult terrain, looking for signs of life under the monstrous heap of mud and stones on Thursday at the landslide-hit Malin village, where 41 bodies have been pulled out till now amid fading hopes of more survivors.
The SDMA said the ill-fated private boat was carrying 73 passengers, including eight crew.
Two days after one of India's worst train accidents at Bahanaga Bazar in Odisha's Balasore district, two railway tracks have been made fit to carry trains after bulldozers and cranes removed capsized coaches on the main trunk line connecting eastern and southern India.
The death toll in the Uttarkashi bus accident rose to 26 with the recovery of one more body after which the search and rescue operation was concluded, officials said on Monday.
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.
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