'How much rain fell on June 16 and 17 is NOT known because the area of Kedarnath is not covered by the Indian Meteorological Department,' M Shashidhar Reddy, vice chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority tells Sheela Bhatt. Because of this, the NDMA will not know "what exactly happened over there, in and around the Kedarnath temple."
The death toll in Nepal from this week's earthquake has risen to 110, authorities said on Thursday even as a fresh tremor, measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale, was felt in Nepal on Thursday.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
The unstated aim of a well-publicised airlift operation of this kind is to demonstrate India's ability to rapidly move troops and equipment over long distances.
'Magnanimity and appeasement have no place in the world of realpolitik as India has learned the hard way,' notes Vivek Gumaste in the first of a two-part column.
Naomi Mihara reports from Bungamati, which used to be one of the prettiest parts of the Kathmandu valley before the quake.
The two districts which are the part of Nepal's Bagmati Zone have suffered extensively in the April 25 earthquake which left a trail of death and destruction.
At least 50 major landslides occurred in just four road stretches in calamity-torn Uttarakhand, where hundreds of pilgrims are feared to have perished in flash floods, an official said.
Nepalese authorities initiated post-quake renovation works on Wednesday, including inspection of homes to evaluate safety.
Inclement weather badly hampered cremation of bodies and removal of debris at Kedarnath on Friday besides affecting distribution of relief in over 200 segregated villages where people have lost their homes and are faced with acute foodgrain shortage.
Nepal's remote mountainous areas have suffered "almost total devastation" from a powerful quake that claimed over 6,300 lives, aid agencies warned even as relief slowly began to reach far-flung regions amid fresh aftershocks that kept people on edge.
Fresh tremors rocked parts of Nepal today, triggering landslides as the death toll in last Saturday's devastating earthquake neared 7,000 and protests mounted over relief not reaching several affected areas.
Salvage operations in the earthquake-hit Himalayan country is becoming a 'time consuming' affair
The condition of over two dozen people who were admitted to the hospital in Kathmandu is said to be serious.
'Truth be told, Amrita Singh and Saif Ali Khan's daughter has tons of filmi blood and it is what powers Kedarnath from start to finish,' says Sukanya Verma.
The death toll from Nepal's earthquake has risen to over 3,700, two days after the devastating earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter Scale struck the Himalayan nation.
At least 21 persons have died and thousands were marooned in villages across eight districts of Uttar Pradesh where release of water from dams in Nepal have caused major floods, even as large parts of the state were heading towards a drought-like situation due to scanty monsoon rain.
Each year, economic damages increase -- and once again, development gains are lost in one season of flood or bad drought.
The Dhaka to Kathmandu US-Bangla Airlines flight, with 67 passengers and four crew members on board, caught fire after it careened off the runway and ploughed into a football ground near the Tribhuvan International Airport on Monday.
More than 3,000 squads under health and local self-government departments have started the process of cleaning houses and public places, official sources said.
The Sikkim government is planning to convert an artificial lake, formed by a massive landslide in the state's northern part in August last year, into a tourist spot.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the meeting that the situation in Uttarakhand is better than what it was on Tuesday and Food Minister K V Thomas is taking steps to rush more food grains to the flood-hit Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
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
'The prime minister expressed concern and assured all possible help to the state,' CMO said.
An assessments of 2,500 buildings carried out by more than 1,000 local engineers during the last four days have revealed that a fifth are no longer habitable and three-quarters need repairs before they can be considered safe.
The 7.9 Richter Scale temblor that struck Nepal on Saturday also affected parts of Tibet. The two border ports to Nepal were seriously affected.
At least 155 people have lost their lives and over 80 lakh people affected in fresh floods due to excessive rains in worst-affected Gujarat, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Odisha.
Indian cities will go down like a pack of cards if hit by a powerful earthquake, seismologists tell Rashme Sehgal.
Two men and a woman were on Sunday pulled out alive from under the rubble of their homes in Nepal
Stepping up relief and rescue operations in quake-hit Nepal, India on Sunday deployed over two dozen aircraft and choppers along with nearly 1000 trained personnel and said the situation in the Himalayan nation was "very, very serious".
After a brief suspension due to bad weather early in the morning, the rescue operations in rain-hit Uttarakhand resumed on Sunday on a war footing to evacuate 22,000 pilgrims still stranded in high altitude areas amid a MeT department warning of light to moderate rains in the region from Monday.
Rescuers raced against time to search for survivors still feared trapped under mountains of debris in quake-hit Nepal where over 5,000 people have been killed, even as heavy rains hampered global humanitarian efforts in remote areas of the battered country.
Beyond colossal loss of human lives, if there is anything perhaps equally overwhelming in Nepal's earthquake tragedy, it is the monumental damage the country's iconic heritage has suffered due to the calamity.
'Glaciers are melting all across the region.'
Over 26 people have lost their lives country in the aftermath of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Nepal.
Nothing is going to dramatically open up on May 3. There will be too many ifs and buts and terms and conditions and guidelines in leading one's life in various zones, reveals Sheela Bhatt.
Dr Swarnim Wagle, the official behind Nepal's reconstruction strategy, speaks to Patrick Ward.
The real Kathmandu is different from the Kathmandu of the news stories, writes Patrick Ward.
Fresh tremors were on Sunday felt in various parts of India, including the national capital Delhi, even as the death toll in Saturday's earthquake climbed to 62.
What must India do now?
