It has been a week since 41 labourers got trapped inside an under-construction tunnel at Silkyara in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district after parts of the structure collapsed following a landslide last Sunday.
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.
At least 28 people died in rain-related incidents Sunday as heavy downpours lashed north and northwest India, causing landslides, traffic chaos and house collapses, as well as a dam breach which inundated several villages in Haryana.
Army and air force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations.
Despite adverse weather conditions and widespread inundation in affected areas, a total of seven naval rescue teams departed by road for deployment to the Ratnagiri and Raigarh districts on July 22, 2021 from Mumbai, said Indian Navy.
'The nearby civilians helped us a lot in providing food, water and first aid.'
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said saving lives and extending all help to the families of the deceased is the state government's priority.
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.
Two persons were rescued after the incident that occurred at 4.50 am in Shahbaz village, they said, adding that before the building collapsed, the authorities managed to evacuate 52 residents.
The India meteorological department on Sunday issued an 'orange' alert for Gujarat, saying the state was expected to receive "heavy to very heavy rainfall" on July 24.
Rescue efforts continue in Telangana for eight people trapped in a collapsed tunnel, but hopes for their survival are fading as experts from the Geological Survey of India and the National Geographical Research Institute have been brought in. The tunnel is filled with debris, making the rescue operation extremely difficult. Despite relentless efforts by the Indian Army, Navy, NDRF, and other agencies, no breakthrough has been achieved so far.
The National Disaster Response Force has deployed its teams in vulnerable areas of Gujarat to deal with cyclonic storm Nilofar that will hit the state's coast on Friday.
More than 11,000 personnel of various agencies including Gujarat Police, NSG, RAF, and home guards among others will be deployed in Ahmedabad and at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad during the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match on October 14, a senior officer said on Monday.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday termed as 'baseless', Union Home Minister Amit Shah's claim that the state government did not heed the Centre's warning regarding a possible natural calamity in Wayanad due to heavy rains.
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.
The home minister will also review the preparation for the annual Amarnath pilgrimage set to start on June 29.
With the recovery of five more bodies from the debris at the landslide-affected Irshalwadi village in Maharashtra's Raigad district, the toll increased to 21 on Friday, an official said.
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.
Ravi, son of a road construction worker, fell into the borewell on Wednesday afternoon while playing near Thorandale village, 70 km from Pune.
While two lives were "tragically" lost before the landfall of the cyclone, not a single human life was lost post the landfall in Gujarat.
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.
Water level of the river Kali has been continuously rising and reached the danger level.
The dead include 18 children in the age group of two to 15, including three toddlers, an official said.
Another woman from Malda district said that her son was killed in the accident.
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.
Police said around half-a-dozen dumper trucks and some machines were buried under the debris caused by the landslide which occurred around 9 am in Tosham block.
While there was a brief respite from the incessant downpour on Tuesday, collaborative efforts from the defence, national, and state disaster response forces took the lead in executing rescue and relief operations.
India has sent to Turkey two plane-loads of relief materials and medical teams for survivors of the devastating earthquake that killed over 5,000 people.
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.
More than 170 personnel have been tested till now after they returned to their base in Cuttack, Odisha, from the cyclone-affected West Bengal.
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.
Nine persons were still feared trapped under the debris of the structure which collapsed at 1.45 pm on Saturday at Wardhaman Compound in Valpada area, they said, adding that search and rescue operations were on.
The India Meteorological Department has said that the landfall process of Cyclone 'Biparjoy' has started in Saurashtra and Kutch regions of Gujarat. The landfall process will carry on till midnight with wind speeds reaching a maximum of 140 kilometres per hour, the IMD said.
Earlier on Saturday, six bodies were recovered and two more were retrieved a short time later, the police said.
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 rescue personnel had launched an operation to reach Sujith Wilson and pull him out of the borewell into which he had fallen on Friday evening while he was out playing nearby. More than six crews of the National Disaster Response Force as well as the State Disaster Response Force have been working to rescue the two-year-old but are yet to reach him.
Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed for relief and rescue operations in the worst flood-affected districts of Assam. The floods have affected nearly two lakh people and claimed four lives. According to the NDRF control room, relief and rescue operations in the districts of Lakhimpur, Dhubri, Sonitpur and Jorhat have been assisted by the force by deploying one team in each of these districts.
The IMD issued a 'red alert' for Pune district and asked people to take precautions.
The government has asked the general public to call toll free numbers 1070 and 1077 during emergency situations .
'They charge such high fees and offer us this safety. Our lives have become a mockery.'
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