The government is planning to airlift excavators to flood-ravaged Uttarakhand regions for clearing boulders and debris accumulated in Kedarnath.
The flood situation eased in Assam and northern districts of West Bengal with water receding and no fresh deaths being reported in both the states.
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.
In Uttar Pradesh, two persons were killed since Tuesday in the floods which have affected around 8.7 lakh people in 987 villages of 28 districts in the state.
Wing Commander Raveendran and flight steward Sargeant Iyer, though shaken and injured, managed to open the rear door of the aircraft and shouted for Prime Minister Morarji Desai and the passengers in the forward cabin to exit in haste since they suspected that fire would engulf the aircraft.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
The apex court said this while dealing with an application filed by the Assam which had sought a clarification whether each of the children of the deceased parents would be provided ex-gratia payment of Rs 50,000, in case there is more than one child.
When the landslide hit, Sruthi's house was washed away, along with its inhabitants. She lost her entire family and some relatives. All she had left for a close confidante was her fiance Jenson. Days after the landslide and the loss of her family, Jenson died in a road accident that also left Sruthi with serious injuries. News of the accident and Sruthi's backdrop as the lone surviving member of a family wiped out in the July landslide, was picked up by the media, and people rushed to help.
As many as 79 people have lost their lives in incidents related to cyclone Tauktae in different parts of Gujarat, officials said on Thursday as the authorities carried out restoration work in affected areas and launched damage assessment exercise.
However, the AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the SC committee has limited terms of reference and 'cannot bring out the deep nexus between' the prime minister and the billionaire businessman.
Maharashtra state disaster management officials said no locust swarm was spotted in Mumbai. "The viral images and videos have been wrongly attributed as being from Mumbai," an official said.
The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, which was passed by a voice vote after a short debate, also allows the Centre to take possession of a telecom network in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety.
The Delhi government has banned construction and demolition activities in the city till November 21.
'The situation is especially serious in major hotspot districts or emerging hotspots like Ahmedabad and Surat (Gujarat), Thane (Maharashtra), Hyderabad (Telangana), and Chennai (Tamil Nadu),' the MHA statement said.
Railway officials also indicated that possible 'sabotage' and tampering with the electronic interlocking system, which detects the presence of trains, led to the Friday accident.
"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.
The powerful cyclone, strongest to hit India in 20 years, made landfall at around 8 am in India's eastern state of Odisha, killing at least 12 people.
Anxious relatives of several Indians stuck in Sudan following the fighting between the Army and paramilitary forces are eagerly waiting for information about their relatives and appealed to the government to evacuate them from the strife-torn African country as soon as possible.
All members of the National Disaster Management Authority, appointed by the previous United Progressive Alliance government, have been asked to resign.
Bhalla said the availability of adequate and uninterrupted supply of medical oxygen is an important pre-requisite for managing moderate and severe cases of COVID-19 and with the increasing cases, the medical oxygen supply will need to keep pace with the requirements of the states and union territories.
According to reports from the states, several congregation participants are yet to show up before authorities.
With the recovery of four more bodies today, the death toll mounted to 36 in Assam floods that affected about 10 lakh people in 13 districts and rendered majority of them homeless.
The probe agency, while seeking Patkar's custody, also told the court that an offence of such magnitude was not possible without the "explicit complicity of senior functionaries" of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
The home minister held a video conference with Chief Ministers of Gujarat and Maharashtra -- Vijay Rupani and Uddhav Thackeray respectively -- and Administrator of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Praful Patel, and assured them all central help in view of the impending cyclone, an official statement said in New Delhi.
LIVE! Incessant rains: Red Alert in 5 Kerala districts
Over 300 people from Maharashtra have been rescued from the earthquake-hit Nepal in the last four days, while the state government is unable to establish contact with 40 others.
Alert to the looming threat from the 'Omicron' variant, states began to re-tighten curbs and urgently trace people who arrived from abroad in the last one month while a demand to not allow flights from the affected countries was made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
According to experts, slopes in Himachal have become highly vulnerable to landslides due to cutting of rocks at the foothills and the lack of proper drainage system, and high intensity rainfall is making the things worse for the state.
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.
Massive relief and rescue operations have been launched in Manipur where a strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday claimed nine lives, shattered buildings and caused panic.
In the Northeast, while three people died in Assam, two each lost their lives in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram in rain-related incidents.
'I feel numb with the trauma we have been going through ever since we first got the news. For close to two weeks, we have been hearing my child will be rescued today. That today never comes'
According to an order issued by Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev, the night curfew will also be imposed from 11 pm on January 1 to 6 am on January 2.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia said the number of cases might have increased but the hospitalisation rate is low.
Maharashtra has reported 31 positive cases, Kerala 19, Uttar Pradesh 11, Delhi and Karnataka six each, Ladakh three, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan and Telangana two each; and Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab one case each. The total number of confirmed cases also includes 17 foreigners -- 16 Italian tourists and a Canadian, it said.
The government has decided to deploy more helicopters in Uttarakhand to rescue over 60,000 people still trapped in the rain-ravaged hill state and expedite relief operations.
"These pictures show that at night time all goods are lying there and covered with blue sheets. The state of affairs is such that, Covid or non-Covid, we see is frightening. There could be a stampede; there could be hundreds of deaths," the Delhi HC said.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde led the nation in paying tributes to the twenty bravehearts, who died in Tuesday's chopper crash while rescuing stranded people in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.
National Disaster Response Force personnel left the spot, while State Disaster Management Department personnel continued their rescue work at the accident site with cranes, earth movers and drilling machines.
The storm is likely to impact Mumbai, Thane and other coastal districts of Maharashtra like Raigad and Palghar along with Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bhavnagar and Bharuch districts of Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Preparations for the impending cyclone were discussed at a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, a home ministry statement said.
