People flock to electronics shops to buy air conditioners.
Till Thursday, the country had received 41 per cent less June rainfall than normal - the scantiest in a decade and one of the rarest occasions when the shortfall in the month was more than 30 per cent - private weather forecaster Skymet said in its daily weather forecast on Friday.
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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.
Experts say poor city planning and inefficient administration turned an unusually high rainfall into a disaster.
Jammu and Kashmir government today declared a flood situation in Kashmir Valley as Jhelum river crossed the danger mark in Srinagar following incessant rains.
'Drought in the 1990s was essentially the drought of a poor India.' 'This 2016 drought is of a richer and more water-guzzling India.' 'The severity and intensity of the drought is not about lack of rainfall.' 'It is about the lack of planning and foresight, and criminal neglect.'
Fires are blazing across Jammu and Kashmir, the state of Uttarakhand and have reached the doorstep of Himachal Pradesh's capital city Shimla.
The Zakat Foundation of India runs welfare initiatives for the destitute and helps with the education of poor students. Upasna Pandey/ Rediff.com discover the origins of this organisation
'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."
Rescue and relief operations continued in full swing in Chennai with over a hundred people taken to safety by teams of Army, IAF and NDRF, including a seven-month pregnant woman who was airlifted on Thursday from one of the worst-affected areas in the flooded city.
State government announced ex gratia for kin of those who lost lives.
'After three days, most people resigned to the idea of living with minimum facilities. By then, they had stopped getting angry, irritated and worried. As days passed by, one heard less and less complaints.' 'In a crisis like this, you expect the administration to help people but I didn't see any administration here. I saw only NGOs and people helping themselves' 'I feel people have not leant anything from this disaster. Unless we learn to respect nature, learn to take corrective measures, this will happen again and again.' N Rajasekharan Nair recounts his ordeal as the flood waters rose around his apartment complex.
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