'Evacuation' has been key to disaster management in Odisha. The aim is to achieve zero casualty.
Brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait will not only be a recipe for disaster to both China and Taiwan, but also to international peace and stability, warns Rup Narayan Das.
The depression over southwest and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 11 kmph and lay centred at 1130 hrs of Monday over the same region, about 520 km east-southeast of Puducherry and 560 km southeast of Chennai, the Indian Meterological Department said.
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.
Maharashtra state disaster management officials said no locust swarm was spotted in Mumbai. "The viral images and videos have been wrongly attributed as being from Mumbai," an official said.
Even as cyclone Fani made landfall on Friday morning near Puri in Odisha, various states took measures on a war footing to mitigate the suffering caused to the common man. Here's a photo essay on how states tackled the most powerful cyclone to hit India in 20 years.
The Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority, in a tweet, said as per the latest updates #GajaCyclone is likely to have landfall between 8 pm and 11 pm on Thursday in all probability in Nagapattinam district.
The epicenter of the quake was Sonitpur and the quake occurred at 7.51 am at a depth of 17 kilometres, it said.
Major rivers in Ratnagiri district, including Jagbudi, Vashishti, Kodavali, Shastri, Bav are flowing above the danger level. As a result, Khed, Chiplun, Lanja, Rajapur, Sangameshwar towns and nearby areas have been affected and residents are being shifted to safer places.
Army and air force contingents have been rushed in to assist in relief and rescue operations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 6th India Mobile Congress at Pragati Maidan in Delhi and launched 5G services. The 5G telecom services seek to provide seamless coverage, high data rate, low latency and highly reliable communications system. The three major telecom operators of the country demonstrated one use case each in front of the prime minister to show the potential of 5G technology in India.
The gas leak had occurred through the valve of one of the four ammonia condensers in the maintenance unit at a Haldiram's building.
The experts said that climate change is not only raising temperatures and making India's heatwaves hotter, but also changing weather patterns that further drive dangerous weather extremes.
The directorate of education also said that students and staff must wear masks and maintain social distancing to the extent possible.
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.
Heavy rains on Tuesday pounded several parts of Tamil Nadu with most areas of Chennai witnessing water logging severely disrupting train and bus services.
District Magistrate Ravi Kumar on Thursday said that 75 teams have been deployed in Patna to sprinkle bleaching powder and remove animal carcass.
The West Bengal government has taken all precautionary measures to deal with Cyclone Yaas, likely to hit the state on May 26, and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will stay at a control room set up for the purpose to monitor the situation, officials said.
Heavy rains pounded south and central Kerala on Saturday wreaking havoc in many parts with some people feared missing in the landslides that occurred in hilly areas bordering Kottayam and Idukki districts prompting the state government to seek the assistance of the Army and Air Force for rescue operations.
Terrorists fired indiscriminately on a police party near Nowgam bypass Friday morning, a police official said, adding three policemen were injured in the attack, two of them later succumbed. They said the terrorists have been identified and will be neutralised soon.
The system moved north-northeastwards at 20 kmph in the last six hours and is over west-central Bay of Bengal, 90 km from Gopalpur, 120 km from Puri and 210 km from Paradip, the weather office said in its 11.30 am bulletin.
The CISF has said it was the 'first responder' to rescue passengers on Friday as its Assistant Sub Inspector Ajit Singh was on runway patrol when the Air India Express flight from Dubai with 190 people on board overshot the table top runway, fell into a 35-foot valley and broke into two.
Incessant showers caused landslides and floods in various parts of the country leaving at least 17 people dead on Wednesday while thousands more were forced to move to safety as rivers swelled and water reservoirs filled up fast.
The India Meteorological Department said rainfall would be accompanied by gale wind speed reaching 140 to 150 kmph and gusting to 165 kmph along and off Odisha and north Andhra Pradesh coasts.
The flood situation affected nearly 26.5 lakh people across 28 districts.
The cyclone lay about 720 km east northeast of Chennai over the Bay on Monday and it is very likely to move west southwestwards and intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by Tuesday.
The Centre said that there was no legal provision to declare a disaster as a national calamity, amid demands for declaring the floods as a national disaster.
The MeT department forecast very heavy rains over the next 48 hours in the mountainous areas of the state especially the disaster-prone Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts where torrential rains may trigger flash floods, cloudbursts and landslides asking people as well as authorities to be alert.
22 bodies, 13 from Kottayam district and 9 from Idukki were recovered from various rain-hit areas while National Disaster Response Force teams continued their rescue operations.
The government has announced an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh for the next of kin of the deceased.
The blaze at the Oil India Ltd's oil well is so massive that it can be seen from a distance of more than two kilometres, eyewitnesses 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.
Apprehending trouble in the state especially in violence-affected Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in the aftermath of declaration of results of election in the state on Friday, the Assam government has requested the army to be in stand by for quick deployment, if the need arises while helicopter surveillance is being continued in vulnerable areas of the violence-affected BTC areas and along India-Bhutan border.
Schools and colleges in the city and adjoining districts have been closed as a precautionary measure.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took stock of the damage caused by the earthquake in eastern India and has spoken to the chief ministers of Bihar, Assam and Sikkim, government sources said.
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
The national capital received heavy precipitation resulting in waterlogging on several roads and traffic jams at various intersections.
the Indian Meteorological Department's Mumbai observatory had issued a warning for rain and thundershowers in the city and suburbs beginning from Monday night owing to the cyclonic storm Ockhi which is 670 km south west of Mumbai
The storm is likely to impact Mumbai, Thane and other coastal districts of Maharashtra like Raigad and Palghar along with Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bhavnagar and Bharuch districts of Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Preparations for the impending cyclone were discussed at a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC), headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, a home ministry statement said.
Drones, high capacity auto prime pumps, autonomous vehicles, robots, all played a role in the seemingly impossible rescue, reports Pranjal Sharma.
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