'Events like the one we saw on Sunday are complex geological processes which can be impacted by weather and climatic conditions.' 'It is difficult to attribute something like this to just one factor or to a particular time period, especially when we have still not understood the exact cause.'
A portion of the 15-foot tall private compound wall, totally wet due to heavy rains lashing the area for the past few days, fell on the adjoining tiled-roof houses in Nadur village.
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.
Rescue teams will take another fortnight to evacuate flood victims as the roads leading to affected areas have been badly damaged, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has 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.
Delhi continued to reel under massive traffic jams due to waterlogging as heavy rains lashed the city for second consecutive day on Saturday flooding several arterial roads and leaving commuters stranded for hours while exposing civic bodies' lack of preparedness to deal with the perennial problem.
The report said a dedicated organisation for dealing with safety issues awaits government's sanction.
The National Disaster Response Force on Friday intensified its relief and rescue operations in the rain and flood-battered Chennai and its adjoining areas as it added 20 more teams for the job and rescued over 10,000 people till now.
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.
The speculations fuelled as August and September are times of floods in the state and this period will be followed by festivals like Bakri Id, Dushehra, Muharram, Diwali and Chhath slated for October and November.
The national capital received heavy precipitation resulting in waterlogging on several roads and traffic jams at various intersections.
About 2.14 million people were displaced in India last year due to natural disasters, according to a United Nations-backed report which said the country was third after the Philippines and China to record the highest levels of displacement in 2013.
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.
'This virus came in December 2019 and how this virus is going to behave in October and November, we don't know yet.'
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.
Heavy rains lashing Mumbai since Sunday have thrown rail, air and road traffic out of gear, with several trains and flights being cancelled. With IMD forecast of heavy rains for Tuesday, the authorities declared a holiday in the city and adjoining regions, asking people to avoid stepping out of their houses.
Shaking Delhi's spirit and soul, an unimaginable tragedy is unfolding at New Delhi's crematoriums struggling to cope with the deluge of the dead arriving at frightening pace.
The frequency of very heavy downpours seems to have increased.
In a minor relief for residents of flood-hit Chennai, the rains have stayed away for the last few hours.
Kalvari underwent around 120 days of extensive sea trials and tests for various equipment and is expected to bolster India's maritime prowess.
President Ram Nath Kovind on Friday strongly defended the three new agri laws saying their benefits have begun reaching 10 crore small farmers instantly, and condemned as 'very unfortunate' the Republic Day violence and 'dishonour' to the tricolour during the tractor parade by the protesting farm unions in New Delhi.
Orissa learnt its lessons from previous cyclones, particularly the 1999 super cyclone, whereas Uttarakhand has failed to do so from any of the previous natural calamities that hit the state, says Dinesh C Sharma.
Drones, high capacity auto prime pumps, autonomous vehicles, robots, all played a role in the seemingly impossible rescue, reports Pranjal Sharma.
Hurricane Irma made landfall on Florida's southern islands on Sunday and claimed four lives as millions of people, including thousands of Indian-Americans, evacuated the state.
Lives "will once again be at risk" if funding is not urgently secured, United Nations officials have said on the eve of the first anniversary of a military crackdown that forced them to flee their country.
Poor land-use planning, indiscriminate approvals of building plans and the absence of disaster-risk assessment in urban design have resulted in what experts term concentrated concretization, predisposing cities to disaster risks
Complaints to NCM fall down sharply...4,000 Indian women deserted by NRI husbands since 2016...79 districts in India still don't have blood banks...
A major earthquake just offshore rattled Chileans, killing five people and shaking the Earth so strongly the tremor was felt in places across South America.
Around 1,20,000 Indian-Americans reside across Florida.
The weather office on Monday forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall over the next three days over some parts of Uttarakhand, which is still recovering from a deluge last week that is feared to have taken over 1,000 lives.
Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa said the "unprecedented" northeast monsoon killed 470 people and nearly a lakh livestock besides damaging crops in over 3.83 lakh hectares.
The recent tragedy confirms the view of humanitarian aid as a political weapon
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.
Cyclone Hudhud has moved closer to the cost of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh and will turn into a severe cyclonic storm in next 12 hours, the India Meteorological Department said.
'We should not forget the core purpose of the lockdown -- to buy time to implement a strategy to tackle the virus, to prepare for the final lifting of the lockdown and to prepare for a 'new tomorrow',' notes Dr Sanjeeth Peter.
Jean Dreze, a noted economist who was was a member of Sonia Gandhi led National Advisory Council, was dropped from the list of speakers at the Delhi Economics Conclave organised by the finance ministry and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Why did Chennai go under in the recent rains? R Ramasubramanian paints a familiar picture of dismal urban town planning, civic short-sightedness, and rampant development that caused the recent nightmare.
'We know many things are going to happen.' 'People should be preparing for sea level rise, for increased cyclonic activity, for drought.' 'One reason I wrote the book is to alert people to the dangers that they face.' 'For example, Mumbai faces enormous threat.'
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
As Cyclone Hudhud is closing in on the Andhra Pradesh coastline and is expected to make a landfall near Visakhapatnam by Sunday afternoon, about 1.11 lakh people in five coastal districts have been shifted to safer places.
