'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.
The India Meteorological Department said the deep depression over the Gulf of Mannar close to Ramanathapuram district's coast remained practically stationary for 18 hours and then weakened into a depression.
The much-awaited Ram temple consecration will be held in Ayodhya on Monday in a grand ceremony with Prime Minister Narendra Modi attending the rituals, following which the shrine will be opened for the public a day later.
However, the National Disaster Response Force, which has been engaged in the rescue operation since the day of the tragedy on December 13 last, will continue with their services.
State pegs total loss due to rains at Rs 8,481 crore.
The Solicitor General had told the bench that several members of the National Disaster Response Force were working at the site and instead of the army, the government has sent navy personnel there as the mine was submerged in water.
Under its impact, rains will start on Sunday night and gradually increase on Monday in the northern districts of Chennai, Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram, S Balachandran, Director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, said.
Several people were feared trapped under the debris, police said, adding that the rescue operation was underway.
Thousands of firemen, NDRF and IAF personnel along with forest officials are working together to douse the flames.
Police said around 15 people were rescued and shifted to Acharya Bhikshu hospital. Of them, seven died and four people, who were critical, have been shifted to Safdarjung hospital. A few more persons are feared trapped under the debris, they said.
The minister, who made an aerial survey of badly affected areas in Idukki and Ernakulam districts, said the rains and floods had caused 'massive damage' to the farm sector and infrastructure like roads and power.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of the situation, and assured all possible assistance to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. The prime minister also chaired a meeting of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to assess the situation.
The NDRF chief said initial reports suggested that due to the impact of the cyclone, buildings and some communication towers were destroyed.
"Six bodies have been retrieved from the accident site so far. The rescue teams are still on job," an NDRF spokesperson said.
The bus was on its way to Jaora from Ratlam when the mishap occurred on the four-lane road at 12 Patthar Khadan,
Indian Air Force and the army flew 2,223 sorties, shifted about 11,200 people to safer places and transported and dropped about 1,700 tonnes of relief material.
Landslides blocked roads, many villages went without electricity and the death toll climbed to 52 as authorities on Wednesday faced the aftermath of the rains that had battered Uttarakhand for over two days.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday accused NIA officials of attacking villagers in Purba Medinipur district, the BJP hit back at her saying that the attack on the NIA officials is Sandeshkhalli 2.0 orchestrated by the state.
After about 58 hours of rescue operation involving different agencies, the child, daughter of a farm labourer, was found dead.
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.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde reviewed the rain situation on Tuesday and said over 3,500 people had been shifted to safer places from flood-prone and vulnerable spots across the state, where several districts, including Mumbai, experienced downpour.
The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.
As several more people are feared dead in the incident, the search operation launched by the teams of police and the National Disaster Response Force is still on, an official said.
Making a statement in the House "regarding an avalanche in Chamoli District of Uttarakhand", the Union minister said these inputs were based on the information received till Monday 5 pm from the state government.
Saturday's special search operation to trace the 17 missing engineering students from Hyderabad yielded no results as the 450 rescuers combing the 3-km stretch of Beas river, whose water level was lowered to minimum, failed to recover the body of any student.
The building Shree Krishna crashed around 2.30 am
'Kamal has surfed and navigated a lot of tidal waves, manoeuvring the peaks and troughs, combining rare intelligence and commonly available intuitions to overcome unimaginable crises all his life.' 'There is no looking back at the past, for his only motto has been 'Tomorrow belongs to us'!'
'We expect the movements to come down to a trickle or even to stop at all these places,' says NDRF DG Satya Pradhan.
The world organisation said UN humanitarians and partners were working hard to assist the people of Bangladesh and India suffering from the impact of the cyclone, which made landfall on Wednesday, wreaking havoc, causing high tidal surges, flooding and embankments to collapse.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
Sixteen deaths in rain and flood-related incidents have been reported from western Maharashtra in the last seven days, while the toll in Karnataka rose to five since Sunday.
Working round-the-clock to help flood victims in Bihar, National Disaster Response Force personnel rendered timely help to three marooned pregnant women at separate places deliver their babies safely.
West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
Villages are flooded, roads have washed away and railway tracks have submerged under the rising waters.
The entire coastal region of Odisha has been experiencing rainfall since Friday night.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat, who is in Delhi, expressed grief at the loss of lives and announced a compensation of Rs two lakh each to the families of the victims.
A four-year-old girl, who accidentally fell in an open borewell at an agricultural field in Telangana's Ranga Reddy district on October 12, was found dead on Tuesday afternoon, the police said.
Over 20,000 people were evacuated to safer places in these three districts. State capital Mumbai too witnessed water-logging in many areas after overnight rains on Thursday.
'You don't know what you are going to encounter every 10-20 metres.' 'These mountains are unpredictable.'
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
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