Tirumala, the abode of Lord Venkateswara, was caught in a massive flood of unprecedented scale on Thursday, leaving hundreds of pilgrims stranded even as a heavy downpour under the influence of a depression in Bay of Bengal battered the temple-town Tirupati and many parts of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh.
'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?'
Over 50 employees of the company whose office was located on the first floor were rescued while 27 bodies have been found.
Naim Sheikh, who knew how to swim managed to save, with the help of his friends, about 50-60 people, even though, he himself was also injured in the incident.
The dead include 18 children in the age group of two to 15, including three toddlers, an official said.
Sujith Wilson had fallen into the disused farm borewell while playing near his house in Nadukattupatti on Friday evening, and various central and state agencies were called in to rescue him.
'It is very likely to move nearly northwards for next few hour and recurve slowly north-northeastwards along Narsapur, Yanam, Kakinada, Tuni and Visakhapatnam coasts during noon to evening on Wednesday and emerge into west central Bay of Bengal off North Andhra Pradesh coasts by night,' the India Meteorological Department said in its national bulletin.
The district magistrate said that a central team will survey the damage to properties due to the land subsidence and suggest a way forward while coordinating with the local administration in relief and rescue efforts.
Modi assured to extend all required assistance to the state to face the situation, the Chief Minister's office said.
Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed for relief and rescue operations in the worst flood-affected districts of Assam. The floods have affected nearly two lakh people and claimed four lives. According to the NDRF control room, relief and rescue operations in the districts of Lakhimpur, Dhubri, Sonitpur and Jorhat have been assisted by the force by deploying one team in each of these districts.
'These kinds of tunnels are not meant for the Himalayas.' 'Development should be good for all people and not where you make a tunnel and 40 people get trapped.'
The entry of the 152-members three NDRF teams and six canines into the disaster zone was swift, and their exit "moving and emotional".
The death toll from the Uttarakhand glacier disaster rose to 31 with five more bodies being recovered, officials said on Tuesday as multiple agencies raced against time to reach about 30 workers trapped inside a tunnel in a power project site and 175 people remained missing.
Government on Sunday announced Rs 6 lakh compensation for kin of those killed in the country due to the earthquake as Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of rescue and relief operations at home and in Nepal and directed that they be speeded up through close coordination among agencies.
At least 17,674 people have died and 72,879 people have been injured in Turkey, according to Vice President Fuat Oktay on Thursday.
A wing of the building, located in Kurla, collapsed around midnight, officials said, adding that its another wing was also likely to crash and was vacated.
Making a statement in the House "regarding an avalanche in Chamoli District of Uttarakhand", the Union minister said these inputs were based on the information received till Monday 5 pm from the state government.
Modi highlighted the fact that normal rules and procedures have been set aside in view of the emergency nature of requirement in Kerala.
The building, located in Pragati Nagar area of the town in Kheda district, collapsed late on Friday night, Kheda Superintendent of Police Divya Mishra said.
Personnel of NDRF, Fire, Forest and police departments have expanded their search operations to the downstream of a river in their efforts to trace 19 more people who were still missing in the August 7 tragedy near Rajamala.
ISRO chairman S Somanath said the success gave the space agency "greater confidence," as the GSLV will be next deployed in the NISAR mission, a collaborative effort with the US' NASA.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy has announced Rs 10 lakh ex gratia for bereaved families.
Rescuers were on Tuesday looking for possible survivors in rain-ravaged Idukki district of Kerala, where a string of landslides claimed 14 lives, even as Cochin International Airport was yet to resume operations.
At least 11 people were killed when two three-storey buildings built 11 years back collapsed in Madhavnagar locality of Atladara area in Vadodara in the wee hours on Wednesday and about 40 people were feared to be stuck under the debris.
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Rescue teams along with divers and rafters scoured the Beas River for signs of the missing 19 students of a Hyderabad-based engineering college and a tour guide who were washed away due to sudden discharge of water from the reservoir of Larji Hydropower Project.
The National Disaster Response Force personnel were pressed into service soon after the incident and rescue and search operations were underway, police said.
The death toll in the devastating earthquake that struck havoc in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province rose to 217 on Wednesday, amid fears that it is likely to go up.
The incident took place around 7.15 pm on Saturday, Tamil Nadu Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan, who visited the spot near Kanthanchavadi, told reporters.
A landslide destroyed a remote village in Indonesia, killing at least 20 people, an official said, as rescuers used their bare hands and sticks to search through the mud for scores of missing in the absence of heavy-lifting equipment.
"The death toll has gone up to 24. The search operations are still going on. However, rains have started. "Despite that, our officials, and the NDRF are engaged in search and rescue operations," Idukki District Collector H Dineshan said.
The local police said that the building was undergoing some modifications when it collapsed.
The government has announced an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh for the next of kin of the deceased.
District Magistrate Ravi Kumar on Thursday said that 75 teams have been deployed in Patna to sprinkle bleaching powder and remove animal carcass.
Dramatic visuals showed fidgety people inside the cable cars that hung in air against the backdrop of a rocky hill cliff that overlooked a densely-forested valley.
Tracing the remaining persons was proving a daunting task as the river remained in spate with over two lakh cusecs of floodwater gushing, sources said.
A series of flash floods in Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh killed at least 16 people on Wednesday and damaged several residential houses, standing crops and a mini power plant, officials said.
The staff and security personnel are performing their duties using mechanised and country boats to deal with any kind of eventualities, they said.
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.
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.
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