Schools and colleges in the city and adjoining districts have been closed as a precautionary measure.
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
A bulletin from the India Meteorological Department said heatwave conditions are likely to prevail in some parts of Adilabad, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Khammam districts.
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.
Drones, high capacity auto prime pumps, autonomous vehicles, robots, all played a role in the seemingly impossible rescue, reports Pranjal Sharma.
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 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.
The powerful cyclone, strongest to hit India in 20 years, made landfall at around 8 am in India's eastern state of Odisha, killing at least 12 people.
National Disaster Response Force teams were rushed from Delhi to the affected areas in both Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts to help in the rescue operations along with along with State Disaster Response Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police and local agencies, officials said.
As incessant rains lashed Mumbai and Maharashtra, life was thrown out of gear with delay in train and flight services causing great inconvenience to passengers.
South China regions including Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region were affected by strong gales and heavy downpours on Sunday morning.
Both Airtel and Vodafone claim they did everything possible to resume services.
Nobody was injured in the fire, which was reported at 7.54 pm, the official from Disaster Management Unit of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said.
'What's being predicted for Mumbai is not so different from what Kolkata experienced.' 'People should definitely be alert and aware and follow the advice of the disaster managers.'
"These pictures show that at night time all goods are lying there and covered with blue sheets. The state of affairs is such that, Covid or non-Covid, we see is frightening. There could be a stampede; there could be hundreds of deaths," the Delhi HC said.
Tamil Nadu government deployed state and national disaster response force teams in Kanyakumari district, which bore the brunt of the rain fury.
The Odisha government is preparing for Cyclone Phailin -- which is expected to hit the east coast on Saturday evening -- on a war footing.
Leader of Opposition in Kerala Assembly Ramesh Chennithala demanded a judicial probe into the circumstances that led to opening of shutters of 40-odd dams at a time in the state.
IAF officers say they are keen to serve justice quickly and make an example of those found guilty of operational lapses.
According to the SRC, the evacuation of eight lakh people is the largest-ever evacuation operation in the country.
He said though there is a spike in new cases, the situation is under control as not many people are developing severe disease or require hospitalisation.
The flooding in Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra has left people without homes and brought about destruction worth crores.
Mumbai recorded over 250 mm of rain in just three hours (between midnight and 3 am), touching 305 mm by 7 am on Sunday, a meteorologist said.
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.
After days of incessant rains, the situation improved in many parts of Kerala, Karnataka and Maharashtra on Tuesday with water receding in affected areas.
"Six bodies have been retrieved from the accident site so far. The rescue teams are still on job," an NDRF spokesperson said.
The prime minister lamented on the lack of unanimity amongst the member states on the issue of terrorism, saying it dents those very principles, that are the basis for the creation of the United Nations.
Mustafa Chaphekar said he was at home when he suddenly felt "tremors", following which he ran out into the balcony of his flat and asked others what was happening.
Stephen Hawking, in his final book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. At this point, we are as well prepared as dinosaurs were when a 10-km wide asteroid hit the planet 65 million years ago, notes Kumar Abishek.
Heavy rains lashed south and east central Gujarat causing flood like situation in localities alongside rivers flowing through Valsad, Navsari and Surat districts and killing at least five persons at two places, officials said on Tuesday.
Intelligence reports state that the Indian Mujahideen may look to target New Delhi on Republic Day. The Delhi Police is out looking for IM operative Raju Bhai, who could be crucial to averting a disaster. Vicky Nanjappa reports
The severe cyclonic storm lay over the south-east Bay about 300 km west of Port Blair on Monday and had intensified into a very cyclonic storm by 1.30 am, they said. It now lay about 950 km south south-east of Paradip at 8.30 am on Tuesday. The system is likely to intensify further and move in a north-western direction.
'When human beings develop these dangerous toys and leave their control in the hands of aggressive megalomaniac politicians, the threat of a nuclear holocaust is always lurking on the horizon.'
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
The Southern Naval command on Wednesday called off its 14-day long rescue operations in flood-hit Kerala, saying there were no more requests for evacuation as waters receding in affected areas.
India on Wednesdy said there was no likelihood of tsunami tidal waves being formed anywhere in the Indian Ocean region after an earthquake of 8.9 magnitude hit waters off western coast of northern Sumatra in Indonesia.
Scientists also expressed the hope that any technical problem will be sorted out by ISRO, and the mission will be launched successfully.
Though no peripheral burning is taking place at the moment at the well's site at Baghjan, the company has declared an area up to 1.5 km radius as "red zone" to avoid any untoward incident and harm to the general public.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
