1 killed, crops damaged across districts in J'khand due to

A 60-year-old farmer was killed and crops were damaged after heavy rain lashed many parts of Jharkhand since Friday night, officials said on Saturday. The farmer was killed in Palamau district and crops were damaged in Hazaribag and Giridih districts, they said.

The man died after the rain-soaked walls of his mud house fell on him following heavy rain at Noudiha village in Palamau district on Friday night, a police officer said.

The rainfall caused heavy damage to rabi crops, the District Agricultural Officer of Hazaribag, Sanjay Kumar, said.

Hazaribag Deputy Commissioner Bhuvanesh Pratap Singh said that there was a heavy loss to crops and properties in the district. He said that the additional collector of the district and the BDOs of all the 16 blocks in the district were asked to assess the losses so that he could send a report to the state government. According to P N Singh, the Executive Engineer of the Jharkhand Vijli Nigam Limited, (Hazaribag circle), electricity supply was disrupted following damages in nine feeders of Hazaribag town due to which it remained without power for nearly 16 hours. Several trees fell on overhead transmission lines and transformers in Hazaribagh, he said.

The heavy rainfall caused flooding in the Harda river and water is flowing over the road bridge.

As a result, the administration suspended movement of vehicular traffic on the bridge which connects Barkagaon, Keredari and Tandwa, a government official said in Hazaribagh. The 'channa' (pulse) crop was damaged due to heavy rainfall in Giridih district, officials said. According to a weather bulletin issued by the Meteorological Centre in Ranchi, a maximum rainfall of 98.2 mm was recorded in Hazaribagh district, while hailstorm lashed some parts of the district. A trough runs from the above cyclonic circulation to Jharkhand across Haryana and south Uttar Pradesh at 1.5 km above mean sea level, it said. It said almost all districts in the state received rainfall.