Thunderstorm toll rises to 54 in UP
LUCKNOW: Fifty-four people were killed in a thunderstorm that lashed 33 districts of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday and Monday evening, officials said.
They added that the storm left 132 people injured, besides causing huge loss to property.
Sunday’s was the third thunderstorm in the state this month — 16 people were killed on May 9, while 73 died on May 2.
Principal secretary (information) Awanish Awasthi said: “Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has directed all district magistrates and commissioners to provide immediate relief to the affected and ensure that the injured are provided immediate medical care.” The CM has also directed district magistrates to supervise relief work.
A state government official said the casualties included eight deaths each in Bareilly and Barabanki, six in Kasganj, four in Bulandshahr, three each in Pratapgarh and Jaunpur, two each in Lakhimpur Kheri, Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar, one each in Ghaziabad, Kannauj, Aligarh, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Etawah, Mirzapur, Shamli, Mathura, Badaun, Baghpat, Bijnore, Ghazipur, Sultanpur, Rae Bareli, Unnao and Sambhal.
The state government said 24 people were injured in Auraiyya, 17 in Bulandshahr, 16 in Saharanpur, 13 in Sambhal, seven in Rampur, eight each in Lakhimpur Kheri and Badaun, seven in Ghaziabad, four each in Bara- banki, Kanpur Dehat and Kannauj, five in Bareilly, three each in Amethi and Faizabad, two each in Hapur and Banda, and one each in Kasganj, Etawah, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Bijnor and Sultanpur. Relief commissioner Sanjay Kumar said most of the deaths were due to wall and roof collapse, uprooting of trees and lightning.
Meanwhile, Adityanath held a meeting with the district magistrates of 40 flood-prone districts on Monday to review preparedness. “DMS of the districts affected by thunderstorm were asked to stay back to carry out relief and rescue work in their areas,” the CM said.
OTHER STATES
Fourteen people died in West Bengal, 12 in Andhra Pradesh, two in Delhi and one in Uttarakhand, a home ministry spokesperson said.
The IMD again issued an advisory of a thunderstorm accompanied with squall and hail with wind speed reaching 50-70 kilometers per hour being “very likely” at isolated places over Uttarakhand, J&K, Himachal Pradesh and Gangetic West Bengal on Tuesday. Thunderstorms accompanied by gusty winds are also likely at isolated places over east UP, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, subhimalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, south interior Karnataka, Kerala and north TN, the weather office said.