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.
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."
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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.
After days of incessant rains, the situation improved in many parts of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra on Tuesday with water receding in affected areas.
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.
Security personnel at work inside the tunnel rushed out and heavy machines engaged in drilling through the debris and sludge inside were withdrawn.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
The government has asked the general public to call toll free numbers 1070 and 1077 during emergency situations .
A major fire broke out inside the industrial area of Dombivli in Thane after a boiler exploded at the plant of a chemical company.
A senior Uttarakhand official at the site said drilling was complete.
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.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
The Seismological department said that the quake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale and lasted for about two minutes.
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.
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.
The labourers are safe, and oxygen, electricity, medicines, food items and water are being constantly supplied to them through pipes, they said.
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.
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.
The cyclonic depression may have crossed the Tamil Nadu coast on Thursday evening, but the state continues to be battered by heavy rains.
'These are people whom very few give importance and they were doing a mammoth job for the nation.'
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.
Cyclone Biparjoy made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat on Thursday evening with a wind speed of 115-125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph as heavy rains lashed the coastal region, where several areas plunged into darkness due to power cuts and a large number of trees, electric poles and hoardings got uprooted.
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.
Since the yatra began, as many as 28 tourists en route to Kedarnath have died due to various reasons.
Some 50 people have been rescued so far from cable cars which were left dangling mid-air after a malfunction of the ropeway which saw trolley cars colliding on Sunday 4 pm.
People lost their lives in the affected districts due to incidents of drowning, electrocution, house collapse and falling of trees, a disaster management department release 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.
During the heavy rains through the week here and other regions of Tamil Nadu not only inflatable boats, but preparedness, determination and presence of mind came in handy for personnel including policemen and women, civic and forest workers who rescued people, animals and snakes.
Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs on Wednesday, causing flooding on roads and rail tracks and disrupting suburban train services as the south-west monsoon arrived in the city.
This is the first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal this pre-monsoon season.
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