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.
The poisonous haze has been causing significant problems for people with existing respiratory issues, according to doctors.
According to officials, the Ganga was flowing at 463.20 metres following which water filled up in Sangam Ghat, Ramkund, Dhaneshwar Ghat and Fuladi Ghat. There was also a tremendous jump in the water level of the Ganga after 2,000-3,000 cusecs of water was released from the dam of the GVK hydroelectric project built on the Alaknanda river.
Delhi's minimum temperature on Wednesday morning plunged to 4.4 degrees Celsius -- the season's lowest -- making the national capital colder than Dharamsala, Nainital and Dehradun.
Operations at the Delhi airport remained normal. However, three flights were returned or diverted to the Delhi airport due to bad weather in Chandigarh, Varanasi and Lucknow on Tuesday night.
Reliance Jio has sent a second legal opinion to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the subject of the potential allocation of satellite spectrum. The letter is written by retired Supreme Court Justice L Nageshwara Rao and argues in favour of auctions, stating that any other method for allocating spectrum apart from auctions could be constitutionally unsound. Business Standard has reviewed the letter.
A tormenting heatwave swept through North India on Sunday with the mercury crossing 49 degrees Celsius in pockets of Delhi, while the weather office forecast some relief Monday onwards.
The low-pressure area over the South Andaman Sea and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal is very likely to move northwestwards and intensify into a depression by Saturday, the weather office said.
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).
Rauf Azhar, born in 1974 in Pakistan, had been sanctioned by the United States in December 2010.
The country also reported 1,750 deaths due to extreme weather events such as floods, cyclonic storms, heavy rain, landslides, lightning, among others, during the year, it said.
'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.
Several global models are predicting El Nio to appear around the second half of the year, which are the crucial rain-bearing months.
The rain ebbed in some places in north India and pelted down in others on Tuesday, with at least seven more people dead and hundreds stranded as raging waters gushed through villages, towns and fields -- from the desert state of Rajasthan to the hills of Himachal Pradesh.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said efforts are on to rescue the 300 stranded people, and they could be airlifted as the weather clears. Power and water supply has been snapped in several areas.
Odisha is facing a morgue crunch as a large number of unclaimed dead bodies from Balasore's triple train accident, have piled up at its mortuaries.
Pakistan, the closest ally of China, has decided to skip the Democracy Summit that begins in Washington on Tuesday, opting instead to engage with the US bilaterally to strengthen democratic values, the foreign office in Islamabad said.
The mercury soared to 46.2 degrees Celsius at Najafgarh, making it the hottest place in the capital.
Bankura continued to top the maximum temperature chart at 43.7 degrees Celsius, while Panagarh in Paschim Bardhaman district followed closely at 43.5 degrees Celsius, the weather office said.
Scientists had earlier said the cyclone pulled the moisture and convection, impacting the intensity of the monsoon and delaying its onset over Kerala.
A Red alert, indicating heavy to very heavy rains of over 20 cm in 24 hours, has been sounded for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathnamthitta and Alappuzha districts on December 3, while Orange alert (6 cm to 20 cm rains)for Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki districts the same day.
The plane crash resulted in an electricity cut-off that affected over 90,000 homes and businesses throughout Montgomery County.
Back in the Press Briefing room on being commended for her questions to President Biden and the Indian prime minister, The Wall Street Journal's Sabrina Siddiqui responded, "You gotta do it."
A total of 435 people died in the country due to extreme weather events during the last three months of the southwest monsoon, according to the data compiled by the India meteorological department.
Evacuation of people living in low lying areas of the Yamuna floodplains began Monday evening with the river crossing the danger mark due to release of water from Hathnikund barrage in Haryana amid heavy rains in the northern belt of the country.
The sustainable impact of this process is under scrutiny, Tripathi added.
Above-normal heatwave days are predicted in most parts of central, east and northwest India during this period.
Prime Minister Modi last week called for optimal grain storage, fire audits and mock drills in hospitals as preparations for the harsh summer forecast by the meteorological department.
Kerala has been receiving rainfall since Saturday and 10 out of the 14 weather monitoring stations in the state have received more than 2.5 mm rains.
Schools and colleges in the city and adjoining districts have been closed as a precautionary measure.
Skymet says the IMD ignored the required criterion of two days of necessary rainfall to declare a proper onset of monsoon, reports Sanjeeb Mukherjee.
Shivam Dube continued his recent streak of form with a counter-attacking fifty that proved to be the cornerstone of Mumbai's excellent 330 for six against Bengal
Temperatures in March will be critical to determining the impact of any unusual heatwave conditions on this year's wheat crop in North India. It is that time of the year when the crop enters its vital grain-filling stage, say meteorologists and crop experts. So far, the high day temperatures in the North are not believed to have any significant impact on the final yields since the crop hasn't entered a stage where heat affects yields.
Air India has been a subject of its passengers' ire this week as more than half of its flights have been delayed, primarily because of an old crew rostering system. Due to the existing system, the airline has not been able to handle the disruption created by cyclone 'Biparjoy' on India's western coast. The sudden grounding of two planes also added to the carrier's woes.
The states were requested to take a stock of hospital preparedness such as availability of drugs and medical oxygen, vaccination coverage against COVID-19 and influenza.
A red alert was declared in 8 districts of Kerala on Thursday by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) as rains continued to lash various parts of the state and disrupted the day-to-day lives of the people as roads got flooded or caved in and many got displaced from their homes to relief camps.
Ten more bodies were recovered from the site of an avalanche in Uttarkashi, taking the death toll to 26, the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering said on Friday.
The southwest monsoon is expected to reach Kerala during the next two to three days, marking a sluggish start to the seasonal rains that are the lifeline of India's agri-based economy.
Monsoon normally hits Kerala on June 1 but this year, Met department had predicted that it will hit the state on June 5.
States have been told to prepare in advance to counter any impact of an adverse southwest monsoon.
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