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.
A series of cloudbursts hit different parts of Uttarakhand early on Saturday killing four people while 10 went missing as rivers breached their banks and washed away bridges, officials said.
The human toll in the floods and relentless rain across the country reached almost 200 by Thursday, even as thousands in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Odisha, West Bengal, and elsewhere were forced out of their homes into temporary shelters.
The number of subsidence-affected homes rose to 678 while 27 more families were evacuated to safety, a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority in Chamoli said, adding so far 82 families have been shifted to safe locations in the town.
The blast was so strong that it was heard in nearby villages. The fire and smoke could be seen from a distance.
NDRF, with the help of local authorities and police, has been conducting evacuation operations to minimise the potential damage from the cyclone.
Gale-force winds, heavy rainfall and high tidal waves swept the coastal belt of Kerala, Karnataka and Goa as Cyclone Tauktae hurtled northwards towards Gujarat on Sunday, leaving four people dead in Karnataka and two in Goa, damaging hundreds of houses, uprooting electricity poles and trees and forcing evacuation.
The Congress said the PM has neither found the time nor even had the inclination to visit the state for even a few hours.
After days of incessant rains, the situation improved in many parts of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra on Tuesday with water receding in affected areas.
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Three more bodies were recovered Monday from the Tapovan tunnel, taking the toll in the Uttarakhand flash flood to 54 as hopes of finding survivors there over a week after the disaster dimmed.
The death toll in the avalanche triggered by the bursting of a glacier in Chamoli has gone up to 58 as a total of 11 bodies are recovered from the Tapovan tunnel, whereas 146 people are still missing, said Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday.
Government sources said Modi will also chair meetings to review the aftermath of the Cyclone Remal, especially in the north east region hit by natural disasters.
Feroze Qureshi and Monu Kumar, experts in the rat-hole mining technique, were the first to meet the 41 labourers rescued from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand after they cleared the last bit of the rubble inside the structure.
The leader of the 12-member team from Rockwell Enterprises, Wakeel Hassan, said he was approached for help by a company involved in the rescue operation four days ago. "The work got delayed while removing the portion of the auger from the rubble. We started at 3 pm on Monday and finished the work at 6 pm on Tuesday," Hassan said, adding, "We had said the work would be finished in 24 to 36 hours and that is what we did."
Security personnel at work inside the tunnel rushed out and heavy machines engaged in drilling through the debris and sludge inside were withdrawn.
Rain-related incidents claimed nine more lives in Gujarat, taking the death toll to 16 in two days, while another 8,500 people were relocated and rescued from flood-affected areas with rains continuing to lash some parts of the state for the fourth consecutive day on Wednesday, officials said.
According to the home ministry's National Emergency Response Centre, 138 people have died in Maharashtra, 125 in Kerala, 116 in West Bengal, 52 in Gujarat and 34 in Assam due to the floods and rains.
Three tourists from Bangladesh were charred to death in a major blaze in a houseboat on the famous Dal Lake on Saturday, officials in Srinagar said.
The government has asked the general public to call toll free numbers 1070 and 1077 during emergency situations .
Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force consisting of over 60 personnel reached on Friday morning, while 12 personnel from the State Disaster Response Force are already at the site.
Modi said Quad is moving ahead with a constructive agenda for the Indo-Pacific
A total of 33 teams have been earmarked by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) to undertake relief and rescue operations in Gujarat and Maharashtra ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone 'Biparjoy' near the Jakhau port in Kutch district, officials said on Wednesday.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had informed that as per the preliminary report, the total damage due to floods in the state is estimated to be worth Rs 8,316 crore.
The Seismological department said that the quake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and lasted for about two minutes.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
Our men are deputed in the dedicated control rooms of states so that we are on the same page with the local authority in terms of the information, work and tasking, he added.
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.
A senior Uttarakhand official at the site said drilling was complete.
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.
An estimated 1.5 lakh people are being shifted from low-lying coastal areas in Gujarat while 54 teams of the NDRF and SDRF remained deployed on Sunday in view of the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) warning that the very severe cyclonic storm Tauktae will reach the state coast on Monday evening and cross it on early Tuesday morning.
The flood situation in Assam deteriorated on Thursday with one more person losing his life and nearly 7.18 lakh people in 27 districts remaining affected by the deluge, an official bulletin said.
A major fire broke out inside the industrial area of Dombivli in Thane after a boiler exploded at the plant of a chemical company.
The cyclonic depression may have crossed the Tamil Nadu coast on Thursday evening, but the state continues to be battered by heavy rains.
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.
The water level rose above the danger mark in Haridwar and Delhi and the level at Bhakra dam was a foot above the permissible mark.
States were directed to ensure there is no movement of people across cities or on highways. Only movement of goods should be allowed.
The labourers are safe, and oxygen, electricity, medicines, food items and water are being constantly supplied to them through pipes, they said.
The Centre on Sunday assured all help and assistance to Bihar for rescue and relief in the wake of emerging situation due to overflow in Kosi following a landslide in Nepal creating an artificial dam on the river and triggering possibility of floods.
The uncontrollable fire has so far burned over 70 sq km in three areas: Palisades, west of Los Angeles; Eaton, north of Pasadena and San Fernando Valley.
