Fresh rains triggered by a low pressure compounded the miseries of flood victims in Odisha.
East Coast Railway officials said that the accident took place around 6.44 am when some people were waiting at the platform and the waiting hall for a passenger train.
'It is very likely to move nearly northwards for next few hour and recurve slowly north-northeastwards along Narsapur, Yanam, Kakinada, Tuni and Visakhapatnam coasts during noon to evening on Wednesday and emerge into west central Bay of Bengal off North Andhra Pradesh coasts by night,' the India Meteorological Department said in its national bulletin.
The minister put in his papers as police began interrogation of the arrested SUM Hospital owner Manoj Ranjan Nayak.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday started its investigation into alleged criminal negligence leading to the Balasore train accident which claimed 278 lives after registering a first information report (FIR), officials said.
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At least 16 people have died in flood-related incidents in Odisha, where the situation remained grim even as major rivers were receding on Saturday. Two deaths each were reported from Bhadrak, Jajpur and Nayagarh districts while in worst-hit Ganjam district it remained unchanged at six and four in Jagatsinghpur, Special Relief Commissioner P K Mohapatra told reporters here after the situation was reviewed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The system lay centered at 5.30 am over Southeast Bay of Bengal, about 450 km west-northwest of Car Nicobar (Nicobar Islands), 380 km west of Port Blair (Andaman Islands), 970 km southeast of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 1030 km south-southeast of Puri (Odisha).
The cyclone expected to weaken gradually over the next two days.
The extremely severe cyclonic storm, which made landfall at Puri on Friday, unleashed copious rain and windstorm that gusted up to 200 kmph, blowing away thatched roofs of houses, swamped towns and villages, before weakening and entering West Bengal
IMD Director General Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that 'Yaas' is likely to intensify into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Tuesday evening and Chandbali is likely to witness the maximum damage caused by it.
The South Central Railway as well as the East Coast Railway cancelled several trains while some were terminated midway, officials said, adding a few express trains were also diverted.
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.
Gandhi accused Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik of being remote-controlled by Modi
Floods triggered by low pressure induced rains wreaked havoc in cyclone-hit Ganjam and other coastal districts of Odisha, leaving 10 persons dead and lakhs marooned as helicopters launched rescue operations on Friday.
Rain and thundershower lashed many places in Ganjam, Khurda, Puri, Cuttack, Jagatsinghpur, and Balasore in Odisha, disrupting normal life, the weatherman said.
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 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 depression, which was initially over west-central Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas, moved westward and intensified into a deep depression.
The postponement was because District and Sessions Judge, Khurda, M N Patnaik, in whose court the case was tried for two-and-a-half years, was down with viral fever, according to reports.
Flood waters engulfed vast areas of the delta region of Mahanadi river system in Odisha even as the death toll due to heavy rains and floods in the state climbed to 34.
The storm is India's strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall in 20 years.
Cyclone 'Phailin', which was to make landfall two days from now, possibly near Gopalpur in Odisha and in north Andhra Pradesh, on Thursday intensified into a severe cyclonic storm travelling slightly northwest and lying about 800 km from Paradip in Odisha.
District and Sessions Judge M N Patnaik, while sentencing Dara Singh, the main accused in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons, said: "This is one of the rarest of rare cases."
Defence witness Hemalata Karua claimed the event occurred two days before Staines and his two minor sons were burnt to death.
While man and a woman were reported killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. No casualties have been reported from Odisha yet.
Exactly a year after the very severe cyclonic storm Phailin struck the state, another storm is heading towards the Odisha coast.
73-year-old dies in Mumbai, 75-year-old in Kerala.
An earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale hit Myanmar, tremors of which shook the northeast, several parts of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and even Delhi and NCR on Wednesday.
The metrological department on Saturday said that Phailin is a very severe 'super cyclone' and its wind speed may go up to 200 and 240 km per hour by noon itself.
Cutting across party lines, chief ministers and others leaders urged the people to follow the self-imposed curfew from 7 am to 9 pm, noting that "social distancing" was key to breaking the chain of infection, as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 283 after 60 new cases were detected on Saturday, the highest so far in a day, and states like Maharashtra, Odisha and Bihar imposed partial lockdown till month end.
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 killer heat wave brought the nationwide toll to 2,338 even as some places like Delhi got respite on Monday.
According to the SRC, the evacuation of eight lakh people is the largest-ever evacuation operation in the country.
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.
With cyclone Phailin expected to make landfall in Odisha on Saturday, the state government mounted a massive operation to evacuate two lakh people from six coastal districts on Friday night
A new 7.3-magnitude earthquake and seven powerful aftershocks struck Nepal on Tuesday killing at least 50 people and triggering panic in the Himalayan nation already devastated by a monster temblor less than three weeks ago that had claimed over 8,000 lives.
With Cyclone Phailin set to hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts on Saturday evening, rail, road and air traffic has been badly disrupted in the states.
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