At least 28 people died in rain-related incidents Sunday as heavy downpours lashed north and northwest India, causing landslides, traffic chaos and house collapses, as well as a dam breach which inundated several villages in Haryana.
It has been a week since 41 labourers got trapped inside an under-construction tunnel at Silkyara in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district after parts of the structure collapsed following a landslide last Sunday.
The building, which housed godowns on the ground and first floors and four families on the top floor, collapsed at 1.45 pm on Saturday at Wardhaman Compound in Valpada of Mankoli area.
Her husband Raja's body has been discovered, but there is no trace of Sonam Raghuvanshi.
Five people were killed and about 50 missing following several incidents of cloudburst in Himachal Pradesh where rains washed away many houses, bridges and roads, officials said on Thursday.
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.
'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.'
'When our soldiers trained side by side, we demonstrated to the world that our partnership is strong, enduring and prepared to meet any challenge.'
The dead include 18 children in the age group of two to 15, including three toddlers, an official said.
Jalore, Sirohi, Pali and Barmer districts are the most affected and facing flood-like situations, the official said.
More than 21 hours after a huge billboard collapsed in Mumbai's Ghatkopar area due to gusty winds and unseasonal rains, killing at least 14 persons and injuring 75 others, the search and rescue operation is still on, civic officials said on Tuesday.
'The nearby civilians helped us a lot in providing food, water and first aid.'
Water level of the river Kali has been continuously rising and reached the danger level.
With the recovery of six more bodies, the death toll in the Malin village landslide disaster has gone up to 136, even as health officials are sanitising the area in view of the unhygienic conditions there due to decomposing bodies.
While there was a brief respite from the incessant downpour on Tuesday, collaborative efforts from the defence, national, and state disaster response forces took the lead in executing rescue and relief operations.
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.
Ten teams of the NDRF have begun full-fledged relief and rescue operations on the third day of the disaster in quake-hit Nepal.
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.
The moment four National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel arrived on the other side of the rubble at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand to rescue 41 labourers trapped inside, their hopes of a safe evacuation were kindled, team commander Manmohan said.
Ravi, son of a road construction worker, fell into the borewell on Wednesday afternoon while playing near Thorandale village, 70 km from Pune.
As many as 21,080 villagers from Vasai, Palghar, Dahanu and Talasari talukas, which are likely to be affected by the cyclonic storm, have been shifted to safer places, district collector Dr Kailas Shinde said.
22 of the people trapped in mid-air in a row of ropeway cable cars for around 24 hours following the accident were rescued on Monday while one person has died, officials said.
More than 11,000 personnel of various agencies including Gujarat Police, NSG, RAF, and home guards among others will be deployed in Ahmedabad and at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad during the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match on October 14, a senior officer said on Monday.
The police said the child was shifted to a hospital in Indi where he was given preliminary treatment and was later shifted to a district hospital. He is currently stated to be stable, they said.
'What we are witnessing is not a freak incidence or a freak occurrence, but a new climate reality where warming oceans, monsoon variability and local geography are combining to produce extreme events.'
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 rescue personnel had launched an operation to reach Sujith Wilson and pull him out of the borewell into which he had fallen on Friday evening while he was out playing nearby. More than six crews of the National Disaster Response Force as well as the State Disaster Response Force have been working to rescue the two-year-old but are yet to reach him.
Earlier on Saturday, six bodies were recovered and two more were retrieved a short time later, the police said.
Police said around half-a-dozen dumper trucks and some machines were buried under the debris caused by the landslide which occurred around 9 am in Tosham block.
With the recovery of five more bodies from the debris at the landslide-affected Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district, the toll increased to 21 on Friday, an official said.
More than 170 personnel have been tested till now after they returned to their base in Cuttack, Odisha, from the cyclone-affected West Bengal.
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 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.
Nine persons were still feared trapped under the debris of the structure which collapsed at 1.45 pm on Saturday at Wardhaman Compound in Valpada area, they said, adding that search and rescue operations were on.
Another woman from Malda district said that her son was killed in the accident.
Britain, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, Canada and Australia are among the few countries whose support staff comprises at least two security advisors for their athletes' safety
Two persons were rescued after the incident that occurred at 4.50 am in Shahbaz village, they said, adding that before the building collapsed, the authorities managed to evacuate 52 residents.
Environmental organisation Greenpeace claimed that its recent findings -- about sources of radiation existing in the scrap market in Delhi's Mayapuri area -- has forced the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the National Disaster Response Force and the Narora Atomic Power Plant team to re-start their decontamination procedures in Mayapuri.Exposure to radioactive material Cobalt-60 had claimed one life and caused injuries to 11 people in April.
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.
