Two more persons died in West Bengal due to cyclone Dana, taking the toll to four, officials said on Saturday. A civic volunteer, identified as Chandan Das (31), died on the spot when he allegedly touched a live wire in Bud Bud in Purba Bardhaman district. The incident happened when he was out with a police team, they said. An employee of the Howrah Municipal Corporation was found dead in a waterlogged road in Tantipara. It was suspected that he died due to drowning, they said. The state on Friday reported two deaths due to electrocution. One person died in Patharpratima in South 24 Parganas district, and another died in south Kolkata's Bhabanipur area, they added. Severe cyclonic storm Dana struck the eastern coast in the early hours of Friday, triggering torrential rain and high-speed winds that uprooted trees and electric poles, and caused significant damage to infrastructure and crops in Odisha and West Bengal. The landfall started around 12.05 am on Friday between Bhitarkanik
One more body was recovered on Friday during a search and rescue operation after an under-construction building collapsed at Babusapalya here, taking the death toll to nine, police said. Teams from the fire and emergency department, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force have been pressed into rescue operations since the incident occurred during heavy downpour on Tuesday, they said. "One more body has been recovered during the search operation. The deceased has been identified as Elumalai," a senior police officer said. The building owner, his son and contractor have been arrested in connection with the incident, police said.
Two soldiers who were critically wounded in Thursday's terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Gulmarg succumbed to their injuries, raising the death toll in the ambush to four. Two Army porters died on Thursday while another porter and a soldier were injured. Terrorists attacked a vehicle of the force six kilometres from tourist hotspot Gulmarg in north Kashmir's Baramulla district, officials said on Thursday. They had said the terrorists opened fire on the Army vehicle in the Bota Pathri area in the evening when it was headed for the Nagin post in the Afrawat range. Confirming the deaths of the two porters, the officials had said the condition of two of the injured soldiers was critical. They had said the soldiers in the vehicle opened retaliatory fire when they came under attack. The area is completely dominated by the Army and there were reports recently that a terrorist group had infiltrated during early summer and taken shelter in the higher reaches of the Afrawat range, they
Fire brigade team, police department team, municipal corporation team, medical team, NDRF team are at the spot
Seven people are confirmed dead and more than 30 are missing after a boat whose passengers included villagers fleeing from fighting in Myanmar capsized in the Andaman Sea, a rescue worker and local media said Monday. About 30 people have been rescued from the boat, which on Sunday was carrying an estimated 70-75 people to the nearby coastal town of Myeik in Myanmar's southern region of Tanintharyi from the island of Kyauk Kar, which is in an estuary leading to the sea, according to a villager helping rescue operations. The crowded passenger boat set out from Kyauk Kar at 9.30 pm on Sunday and sank near the mouth of the estuary about 15 minutes later, said the villager, speaking to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because he feared being arrested by the military The cause of the accident was unclear, but the villager said the boat, which normally carries a maximum of 30-40 passengers, was overcrowded with people and commodities, and there were strong currents in the
Ten more people died after allegedly consuming illicit liquor in Bihar's Siwan and Saran districts, taking the toll in the hooch tragedy to 35, an official said on Friday. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Saran range, Nilesh Kumar said on Friday that while Siwan accounted for 28 fatalities, seven deaths have been reported from Saran. "As many as 28 people in Maghar and Auriya panchayats in Siwan district have so far died after consuming suspected illicit liquor. Seven people in Ibrahimpur area under the jurisdiction of Mashrakh police station in Saran district also died after consuming suspected spurious liquor", the DIG told PTI on Friday. The suspected hooch tragedy has triggered a political blame game with opposition parties questioning the efficacy of the ban on sale and consumption of liquor, imposed by the Nitish Kumar government more than eight years ago. Locals in both districts claimed that people lost their lives after "consuming illicit liquor". On the condition
At least seven people were killed after a brief but powerful storm swept through Sao Paulo, Brazil with around 1.4 million households in the South America's largest metropolis left without power on Saturday. Officials in Sao Paulo state said that record wind gusts Friday night of up to 67 mph (108 kph) knocked down transmission lines and uprooted trees, causing severe damage in some parts. The storm also shut down several airports and interrupted water service in several areas, according to the state government. One person died when a tree fell on an outdoor stall, authorities said. At least six other people in surrounding Sao Paulo state also died. Authorities originally expected to restore power within a few hours. But several neighborhoods in the metropolitan area, which is home to 21 million people, were still in the dark on Saturday, and authorities were urging residents to limit their consumption of water. Most of the disruptions were in the service area of a single utility,
The head of the US disaster response agency continued to forcefully push back on Monday against false claims and conspiracy theories about her agency's response to Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm continued to climb. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell pointed to the agency's massive, collaborative effort that keeps growing, and she strongly urged residents in hard-hit areas to accept the government's offer for assistance. We have thousands of people on the ground, not just federal, but also our volunteers in the private sector, Criswell said at a news conference in Asheville, North Carolina. And frankly, that type of rhetoric is demoralising to our staff that have left their families to come here and help the people of North Carolina. And we will be here as long as they're needed. Misinformation has spread over the past week in communities hit the hardest by Helene, including that the federal government is intentionally withholding ai
A spectacular aerial display of the Indian Air Force aircraft over the skies of Marina Beach was a big draw here on Sunday, but at least five persons, who were among thousands of spectators, died due to causes including extreme exhaustion. A senior city police official said that one person died on the beachfront and four others in the vicinity and all the five were among the thousands who had gathered along the several kilometer long shoreline to witness the air show. Leader of Opposition and AIADMK chief Edappadi K Palaniswami condemned the DMK government for the incident and alleged it failed to properly make arrangements for such a significant event and conveyed his condolences to the bereaved. To witness the event, thousands of people stood in the scorching sun for atleast 2 to 3 hours and a lot of them held umbrellas to shield themselves. Though the air show was held between 11 am to 1 pm, most people gathered at the venue at least an hour before. Several persons fainted and .
Hurricane Helene's death toll reached 200 on Thursday and could rise higher still, as searchers made their way toward the hardest to reach places in the mountains of western North Carolina, where the storm washed out roads and knocked out electricity, water and cellular service. Officials in Georgia and North Carolina added to their states' grim tallies, padding an overall count that has already made Helene the deadliest storm to hit the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A week after the storm came ashore in Florida before carving a path of destruction through the Southeast, connections between friends, neighbours and even strangers have provided hope in the worst-affected areas. While government cargo planes brought food and water to these areas and rescue crews waded through creeks searching for survivors, those who made it through the storm leaned on one another for support. Sarah Vekasi, who makes and sells pottery out of her Sarah Sunshine Pottery store in Black ...
Thai police have arrested the driver of a bus carrying young students and teachers that caught fire and killed 23 in suburban Bangkok, as families arrived in the capital Wednesday to help identify their loved ones. The bus carrying six teachers and 39 students in elementary and junior high school was traveling from Uthai Thani province, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Bangkok, for a school trip in Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi provinces Tuesday. The fire started while the bus was on a highway north of the capital and spread so quickly many were unable to escape. Trairong Phiwpan, head of the police forensic department, said 23 bodies were recovered from the bus. The recovery work and confirmation of the total dead had been delayed earlier because the burned vehicle, which was fueled with natural gas, remained too hot to enter for hours. The families were driven from Uthai Thani in vans to the the forensic department at the Police General Hospital in Bangkok on Wednesday to ...
Taiwan closed schools and offices and evacuated hundreds from vulnerable areas around the island Tuesday ahead of a strong typhoon expected to hit its populated western coast after lashing northern Philippine islands. More than 500 people were moved from mountainous regions prone to landslides. Nearly 40,000 troops were mobilized to help with rescue efforts, according to the Defense Ministry. Typhoon Krathon is expected to hit the major port city of Kaohsiung in the island's southwest on Wednesday morning then move across the center of Taiwan and northeast toward the East China Sea, according to the Central Weather Administration. It is expected to be felt in the capital Taipei on Wednesday and Thursday. In Kaohsiung, a city of 2.7 million people, many stores and restaurants were closed. Up to 80 centimeters (31 inches) of rain was forecast in its mountainous areas. The storm was moving toward the island with maximum sustained winds of 198 kph (123 mph) and gusts of 245 kph (152 mp
A crisis unfolded in Asheville, North Carolina, as officials pledged to get more water, food and other supplies to flood-stricken areas without power and cellular service Monday, days after Hurricane Helene ripped across the US Southeast. The death toll from the storm surpassed 100. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said during a news conference Monday that the death toll in that state had risen from 17 to 25. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed there. President Joe Biden said Monday he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. Biden said he will travel to Raleigh to get a briefing from state and local officials and take an aerial tour of Asheville. He announced plans for the trip following an operational briefing on the hurricane response and recovery efforts from federal government officials and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, who took an aerial tour o
More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast US in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it -- an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts. That's enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys' stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep. It's enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools. "That's an astronomical amount of precipitation," said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. "I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.' The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials. Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former
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Six people died and nearly 20 were injured in a collision between a bus and a truck in Maihar district of Madhya Pradesh, police said. They said the bus was headed for Nagpur from Prayagraj when it collided with the parked stone-laden dumper truck around 11 pm on Saturday near the Nadan Dehat police station, about 25 kilometres from the district headquarters. Superintendent of Police, Maihar, Sudhir Agrawal told PTI that among those injured, the condition of six people was stated to be serious and they were referred to Satna. He said the rest are undergoing treatment in Maihar and Amarpatan hospitals. Agrawal said senior officials reached the spot soon after getting information about the accident and launched a rescue operation. Further details are awaited.
Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern US on Friday, killing at least 35 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Florida's rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida's Panhandle and peninsula meet. The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as northeast Tennessee, where a dangerous rescue situation was unfolding after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while rapid waters flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health. In North Carolina, a lake used in the movie Dirty ...
Officials pleaded with residents in the path of the storm to heed mandatory evacuation orders or face life-threatening conditions
Under the instructions of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, an ex-gratia amount has been paid to the families of 8 deceased
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict escalates as the Israeli Defence Forces conducts airstrike targeting a high-ranking Hezbollah commander, resulting in six deaths and 15 injuries