Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced a solatium of Rs 4 lakh to the kin of each of the victims
"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.
Six teams of the National Disaster Response Force are being deployed in four coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh as cyclonic storm 'Helen' is expected to cross the Bay of Bengal coast near Kavali on Thursday evening.
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.
An injured soldier told reporters from the hospital that when the building collapsed, there were 35 army personnel inside it, of whom 30 were Junior Commissioned Officers and five were soldiers.
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.
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a warning about havoc rainfall or a cloud burst hitting Bihar's flood-affected districts in the next 24 to 48 hours, officials said on Sunday.
Parts of Raigad, Ratnagiri districts in the coastal Konkan region and Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra, have been worst affected by the floods. Besides that, heavy rains have been pounding parts of Satara district.
Nearly 6,000 passengers were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed following heavy rains, while incessant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state, including around Mumbai, as authorities called in NDRF to help the administration in rescue efforts.
The flood threat in Kashmir eased on Friday as overnight rainfall, which had led to slight rise in water level of River Jhelum, stopped.
Railways Ministry spokesperson Anil Saxena said several people have been rushed to nearby hospitals with injuries, and the casualties may go up.
Heavy rains on Tuesday pounded several parts of Tamil Nadu with most areas of Chennai witnessing water logging severely disrupting train and bus services.
A special control room at the forces' headquarter New Delhi is monitoring the situation 24X7.
The state government has declared a holiday on Wednesday and Thursday for all private institutions, offices, non-essential services within Outer Ring Road here in view of rains.
The death toll in the two high intensity quakes that rattled Bihar on Tuesday rose to 19 on Wednesday, with two more deaths reported from Vaishali and Siwan districts.
Heavy rains pounded south and central Kerala on Saturday wreaking havoc in many parts with some people feared missing in the landslides that occurred in hilly areas bordering Kottayam and Idukki districts prompting the state government to seek the assistance of the Army and Air Force for rescue operations.
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.
The Centre said that there was no legal provision to declare a disaster as a national calamity, amid demands for declaring the floods as a national disaster.
India's historical focus on its continental borders has overshadowed its maritime ambitions, but that is changing quickly, notes Ajai Shukla.
IMD director general Mrutunjay Mohapatra said that cyclone Asani has already achieved maximum stage of intensification and is gradually getting weakened.
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.
Nepalese rescuers resumed their search on Monday for four persons still missing after a passenger plane with 72 people, including five Indians, crashed into a river gorge while landing at the newly-opened airport in the resort city of Pokhara, killing at least 68 people onboard.
Heavy rainfall coupled with strong winds continued to lash several parts of Chhattisgarh on Monday due to cyclone Hudhud, which hit coastal Andhra Pradesh and Odisha on Sunday.
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.
Mumbai-based Doctors For You, a nation-wide humanitarian organisation which has provided services in several disasters in the last few years, started an OPD camp on September 30 just outside the Rajendra Nagar overbridge roundabout when practically the entire city was inundated.
The Congress chief accused Modi of instead posing for cameras and strutting on the Bogibeel bridge on the mighty Brahmaputra river in neighbouring Assam after inaugurating it on Tuesday.
Simultaneous activation of both Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal low-pressure systems has led to the state receiving an excess 65 per cent rainfall.
Floods have ravaged 12 of the 37 districts in the state -- the worst-affected being Patna, Vaishali, Bhojpur, Khagaria and Samastipur districts.
This is also the base of the ITBP's Battalion No. 1, tasked with guarding the Line of Actual Control with China that runs along the state.
The Centre on Friday assured all help to flood-ravaged Assam in dealing with the crisis situation in the state where over 8.5 lakh people have been rendered homeless and 22 lives lost so far.
Babu R was trapped in a mountain gorge without food or water for two days till the Indian Army rescued him in a daring mission.
More than 3,000 squads under health and local self-government departments have started the process of cleaning houses and public places, official sources said.
Out of 67 fishermen, 49 are from Tamil Nadu, 13 from Kerala, four from Assam and one from Andhra Pradesh, they said.
Colonel Ajay Kothiyal, Kirti Chakra, Shaurya Chakra, is one of the most decorated soldiers to join politics. He still has two bullets lodged inside his body sustained in a gun battle with terrorists in J&K.
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.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay 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.
Villages are flooded, roads have washed away and railway tracks have submerged under the rising waters.
Incessant showers lashed Mumbai and its neighbouring areas on Wednesday morning, leading to flooding in many low-lying areas and traffic snarls on roads.
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