'There were literally thousands of houses with cracks.' '40 percent of the town has been affected.'
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 horrific disaster that has struck Uttrakhand has been assessed as a mix of natural and man-made. In fact, the various media analyses indicate we were asking for it and there were enough warnings and indications that this would happen, says Lt Gen (retd) Prakash Katoch.
Heavy casualties were feared as a bus carrying around 45-50 members of a marriage party fell into a gorge in the Bironkhal area of Uttarakhand's Pauri district on Tuesday evening, the disaster control room in Pauri said.
The Supreme Court asked the Union environment ministry to review six specific hydroelectric projects on the upper Ganga basin in Uttarakhand.
The chances of survival for eight people trapped in a collapsed tunnel in Telangana are "very remote," according to a minister. Rescue efforts are ongoing but the minister says it could take three to four days to reach the trapped individuals due to the debris and muck. The minister also mentioned a team of rat miners, who had rescued construction workers in Uttarakhand in 2023, are now assisting with the rescue efforts.
Amid war of words between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party over reports that Narendra Modi had rescued 15,000 Gujaratis from Uttarakhand, BJP chief Rajnath Singh said the Gujarat chief minister never gave such a statement.
Incessant rains lashed Uttarakhand for the second consecutive day on Monday, prompting the authorities to advise Chardham pilgrims not to proceed to the Himalayan temples till the weather improves.
A total of 430 BRO workers were at the road-construction site when the avalanche occurred on Friday, Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar said.
The tourism sector in Uttarakhand has virtually come to a halt in the wake of the deaths and destruction caused by floods and landslides.
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.
Officials said around 1,300 pilgrims are stranded in Kedarnath, Bhimbali and Gaurikund, and are safe.
The move to declare those who continue to be missing in the flash flood as presumed dead has been initiated to expedite the process of distribution of compensation among the affected families, he said.
'Half of China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, which are among the most populous countries in the world, are dependent on the rivers and glaciers of the Himalayas for sustenance.'
The cabinet of the new government led by Rekha Gupta balances representation of all major communities that propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party to power in Delhi with a massive majority after over 26 years.
The monsoon spelt mayhem in several parts of the country on Monday, particularly Mumbai where local train services and flight operations were hit and everyday life disrupted as well as Assam that was grappling with floods yet again.
To avert another Uttarakhand-type catastrophe, we must change course. We should stop pandering to the Indian elite's insatiable appetite for electricity, which is driving reckless dam construction, says Praful Bidwai
In the last five years, 37 bridges have collapsed in Uttarakhand. Another 27 bridges are on the brink of collapse. 'Our politicians don't view these bridge collapses as a setback.' 'Rather they see them as an opportunity to make more money.'
Missing reports of 205 persons have been registered at Joshimath police station so far.
The Army on Sunday deployed four columns and two medical teams in the rescue of people affected by a massive flood in the Dhauli Ganga river after a part of the Nanda Devi glacier broke off at Joshimath in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, officials said.
Indian cricket fraternity reacts to Silkyara tunnel rescue
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.
Almost everyone in the pilgrimage town is talking about SDRF head constable Ashiq Ali, who is deployed at Kangra ghat near Har Ki Pairi in Haridwar.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish at the loss of lives in Uttarakhand and noted that rescue operations are underway to help the affected.
The armies of India and the US on Tuesday began an over two-week mega military exercise at a military facility in Uttarakhand with the aim of exchanging best practices and tactics in sync with growing defence ties between the two countries.
The U'khand CM appealed to people to not make the tragedy an occasion for building an "anti-development narrative"
Thirty-three members of a wedding party were killed and 19 injured when a bus carrying them fell into a gorge in Uttarakhand's Pauri Garhwal district, police said on Wednesday.
Rescue operations continued through Tuesday and Wednesday in Joshimath, Rudraprayag, Dehradun, Rishikesh, Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand and in Shimla, Chamoli, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, for those trapped by landslides.
Rescue work at the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand was virtually on hold Sunday as the agencies involved in the effort set themselves up for the next stage -- adopting multiple approaches to reach the 41 men trapped inside for a week.
Besides, 28 human limbs have also been recovered from different places in the affected area out of which one has been identified. Thirty-three bodies out of the 62 recovered so far have also been identified, police said, adding the DNAs of unidentified bodies are being preserved.
An accurate early warning system that correlates rainfall and the potential for landslides. That is the imperative, say experts as rains create havoc in hills across India and the toll mounts in Kerala's Wayanad slopes where landslides buried entire homesteads and possibly hundreds of people.
Anil Bediya, one of the 41 labourers who were rescued from a collapsed Uttarakhand tunnel after 16 days, survived the ordeal by eating muri (puffed rice) and licking water dripping from rocks.
Three more bodies were recovered from the National Thermal Power Corporation's flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project site on Saturday taking the toll in the February 7 glacial disaster in Uttarakhand to 65, officials said.
A group of tourists, who have just come back from deluge-hit regions of Uttarakhand, on Friday recounted tales of horror from their unforgettable trip. "An entire road on which our vehicle was travelling caved in due to pressure of the gushing flood waters," recounts a woman tourist from Pune who survived the Uttarakhand deluge.
At the devastated Tapovan power project site rescuers worked nonstop even as the odds of finding the trapped workers alive seemed slim.
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.
A Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Right to Information activist on Saturday accused the Harish Rawat government of paying Rs 47.19 lakh out of disaster relief funds to a firm, in which singer Kailash Kher has a stake, for a tourism video featuring cricketer Virat Kohli.
A multi-agency operation to rescue an estimated 34 people trapped inside a big tunnel at Tapovan was carried out overnight after a glacier burst-triggered deluge killed 10 people in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district while over 140 are missing, officials said on Monday.
The successful effort to combat Cyclone Phailin threatens to put disaster mitigation, and a fundamental overhaul of how disaster management in India is structured, on the back-burner, says Anand Sarkar.
Indian Air Force Flight Lieutenant K Praveen, who perished in a rescue mission in Uttarakhand last week, was given a tearful farewell in his hometown Madurai. A Ganesh Nadar captures the sombre moments
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