In one of the worst natural disasters in Kerala, at least 123 persons were killed and 128 injured in massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Wayanad on Tuesday. With hundreds trapped under the debris, sparking fears of mounting fatalities, rescue agencies were racing against time to pull out any survivors.
The epicentre was located in Tsogo Township of Dingri County, which has a population of approximately 6,900 people within a 20-km radius. There are 27 villages within this area.
Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang, better known as P S Golay, on Friday said that the Himalayan state has incurred damages worth thousands of crores of rupees in the flash flood.
Several kutcha houses, temporary shades were destroyed, while hundreds of trees and many electrical poles were uprooted and roofs of some structures were blown away by the storm.
Near the temple, a group of locals shouted 'Murdabad' slogans in protest when Chouhan was on way to console the victims' families.
Assam reeled under devastating floods caused by incessant rain, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi taking stock of the situation and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma visiting several relief camps sheltering affected people on Saturday, officials said.
The India Meteorological Department has issued a 'Red Alert' and predicted 'very heavy' to 'extremely heavy' rainfall across several districts of Assam till Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that violence in Manipur is continuously declining and educational institutes along with businesses have opened in most parts of the state.
The Gujarat government had evacuated over 63,700 people from coastal areas of eight districts and 18 teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and six teams of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) were deployed for rescue operations.
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.
Twenty-seven mountaineers remained missing on Wednesday after rescue workers brought 14 injured members of their team to safety, a day after an avalanche claimed 10 lives in Uttarkashi.
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.
The death toll has climbed to 12 in the first wave of flood in Assam this year.
While incessant rain in the past 24 hours has wreaked havoc in parts of the northeast, triggering flash floods, the national capital experienced one of its hottest days.
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.
The Delhi Police has registered a first information report (FIR) and formed multiple teams to probe the Rajinder Nagar coaching centre flooding incident which killed three IAS aspirants, officials said on Sunday.
District Magistrate Ravi Kumar on Thursday said that 75 teams have been deployed in Patna to sprinkle bleaching powder and remove animal carcass.
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.
Even as cyclone Fani made landfall on Friday morning near Puri in Odisha, various states took measures on a war footing to mitigate the suffering caused to the common man. Here's a photo essay on how states tackled the most powerful cyclone to hit India in 20 years.
The vehicle, a Tavera, was on its way to Jammu from Srinagar and it fell into a 300-foot gorge at the Battery Cheshma area of the district around 1.15 am, they said.
The cyclone ravaged adjacent coasts of the state and Bangladesh between Sagar Island and Khepupara, near the southwest of Mongla in the neighbouring country, after its landfall process began at 8.30 pm on Sunday.
Nearly 86 lakh people in the state's 32 districts have been affected by heavy rain and subsequent floods this year, bringing life to a screeching halt in many parts.
The massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river triggered by a glacial burst in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Sunday came as a grim reminder of the Kedarnath deluge of 2013 which led to widespread devastation in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region.
The three districts are among over a dozen in the state that were lashed by incessant rain for close to 48 hours bringing normal business to a grinding halt and disrupting rail and road traffic in most places.
A total of 1.79 lakh hectare agricultural land was submerged and around 90 per cent of rhino habitats -- the Kaziranga National Park and the Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary -- are under water.
A total of 113 teams were deployed by the federal contingency force in the two states and adjoining areas for launching relief and rescue in the wake of the cyclone.
The estimated strength of these nine teams is about 240 personnel, they 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.
The floods have affected 31 lakh people across 13 districts and also widely damaged crops in different parts of the state.
The total number of people killed in flooding and landslides in the state this year has gone up to 76. While 50 people were killed in inundation, 26 died due to landslides.
An overloaded boat carrying 38 people capsized on Sunday close to the 'Pavitra Sangamam'.
The state government asked the local administration to shift people from low-lying areas in Vadodara if needed as water entered into houses in several localities.
The floods have also damaged crops in 2 lakh hectares of land.
Boring through the rubble of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel was put on hold again on Thursday apparently after cracks appeared in the platform on which the drilling machine rests, in a fresh hurdle to the rescue of 41 workers trapped inside for 11 days.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said none of the 41 labourers rescued from an under-construction road tunnel in Uttarkashi district was in a critical condition.
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 Weather Channel argues that India faces the gravest challenge: Climate change-induced health vulnerability.' 'This is an issue often neglected, alerts Claude Arpi: "Prolonged summers, unpredictable rains, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels are the harsh realities of climate change in the country. These factors increase the frequency and severity of illnesses, pushing people into poverty, and forcing migration".'
A Regional Meteorological Centre bulletin said a cyclonic circulation is now seen over the Comorin area and its neighbourhood, extending up to mid tropospheric levels.
At least 12 passengers were killed and two others missing after a Maharashtra state transport bus fell into the Narmada river from a bridge in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district on Monday, officials said.
The construction of a Bailey bridge to connect the landslide-hit areas, where several people are believed to be stranded, alongside the deployment of sniffer dogs and over 1,000 rescuers from Central and state emergency response teams conducting massive search operations, constitutes one of the largest rescue efforts in the Wayanad, devastated by a deadly calamity.
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