Weather News LIVE: Landslide on Mumbai-Pune Expressway Blocks Traffic; Rain Alert In Parts of Maharashtra, Kerala

The weather department on Sunday issued an orange alert for Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Kasarkode while a yellow alert for Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki, Palakkad, Thrissur and Malappuram

Train movement is affected after traffic suspension on Old Delhi Yamuna Bridge. As the bridge connects Shahadra Station and Old Delhi Stations of Delhi, trains commencing journeys from both directions are either diverted, short-terminated, or canceled. In total 69 trains are affected. A total of 34 trains have been diverted while 17 have been canceled.

The diversion will happen via Tilak Bridge- Shivaji Bridge-New Delhi section.

Delhi: The water level of the Yamuna River was recorded at 206.56 m (7:00 am) at the Old Yamuna Bridge (Loha Pul).

At last 11 people have died due to floods and lightning in Nagpur division of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region so far since since July 13, while more than 1,600 houses have been damaged after heavy rains in the area, officials said on Sunday.

Rains also affected 875.84 hectares of agriculture land in parts of the Nagpur division- which consists of Nagpur, Wardha, Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli districts, as per a preliminary report issued by authorities here.

Heavy rains have been lashing parts of Vidarbha region – comprising Amravati, Akola, Bhandara, Buldhana, Chandrapur, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Nagpur, Wardha, Washim, and Yavatmal – since the last few days.

As reports of cloudburst and flash floods continue to pour in from different parts of J&K and Ladakh, the MeT office on Sunday had good news for the people living here.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday spoke to Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena after the Yamuna river water level has once again crossed the danger mark.

“Had a discussion with L-G of Delhi, VK Saxena Ji about the water level in the Yamuna river, ” the Home Minister tweeted.

Shah also informed that he spoke to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and inquired about the situation caused due to heavy downpour in various parts of the state.

The authorities of Hirakud dam in Odisha’s Sambalpur district on Sunday released the season’s first floodwater to downstream of river Mahanadi, official sources said. The water was released following a steady rise in the water level in the reservoir due to heavy rain in upstream of river Mahanadi.

The authorities of certain barrages in neighbouring Chhattisgarh have released floodwater which went to Hirakud reservoir taking its water level to 613 feet against the full reservoir level of 630 feet.

The officials said the floodwater was initially released from sluice gate number 7 of the dam. Four more gates will be opened later in a phased manner. The release of water will lead to a rise in the water level in river Mahanadi and its tributaries.

As flood waters receded on Sunday in the rain-battered Junagadh district of Gujarat a day after torrential rains, the focus now was on restoring normalcy, officials said, adding nearly 3,000 people have been shifted to safer places in the district. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday issued an ‘orange’ alert for Gujarat, saying the state was expected to receive “heavy to very heavy rainfall” on July 24.

It also predicted heavy to very heavy rains at a few places with isolated extremely heavy rainfall in Devbhumi Dwarka, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Valsad districts in the next 24 hours.

Junagadh city recorded 241 mm rainfall in the 24-hour period ending at 6 am on Sunday, causing waterlogging in several parts, leaving damaged cars piled on each other and carcasses of cattle swept away in flash floods, officials said.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said on Sunday that the state suffered estimated losses of nearly Rs 1,000 crore due to recent floods. A detailed report on the losses will be sent to the Union government and a relief package will be sought, he said.

An on-ground assessment of the losses will be done and people will be provided compensation, he said.

Several districts of Punjab and Haryana were battered by heavy rains this month that left normal life paralysed and flooded vast tracts of agricultural land and residential areas.

IMD has issued an ‘orange alert’ for various districts in Kerala, following which a holiday has been declared in all educational institutes in Kannur, Kozhikode, and Wayanad.

Eleven passengers of a Punjab state transport corporation bus, which was swept away by the swelling Beas river in Manali on July 10, were yet to be traced, police said on Sunday.

The passengers, all from Uttar Pradesh, took the Pepsu Roadways Transport Corporation (PRTC) bus from Chandigarh on July 9. The wreckage of the bus was found in the middle of the Beas river in Manali on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the bodies of three people — an elderly couple and their grandson — who were swept away along with their roadside eatery in a flash flood in Laila rivulet at a village in Rohru were recovered from the Pabbar river in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh on Sunday.

More than 50 people were on Sunday rescued from Karhera village located on the banks of the Hindon here after it was flooded following an increase in the water discharge in the river, a tributary of the Yamuna, officials said.

A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team and the Sahibabad police used motorboats to shift residents of the village, where more than 8 feet of water has accumulated, they said.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Sahibabad, Bhaskar Verma said some villagers have been shifted to safer places while others moved to their relatives’ houses.

More than 300 villages in 13 districts of Uttar Pradesh have been affected by floods and several rivers including the Ganga and the Yamuna are in spate due to rains in Uttar Pradesh and the upper catchment areas. Four people died in rain-related incidents in the state in the last 24 hours, Relief Commissioner Office data showed.

As many as 331 villages in Aligarh, Bijnor, Budaun, Farrukhabad, Firozabad, Ghaziabad, Kasganj, Mathura, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Shahjahanpur and Shamli districts have been affected by the floods, the data stated. Sixty-one shelters have been set up for the 25,281 affected people, it said.

Four people died in rain-related incidents in the state in the last 24 hours. While three people drowned in floodwaters, one died due to snakebite, the Relief Commissioner’s Office said. According to reports, the Ganga river is flowing above the danger mark at the Kachla bridge in Budaun and Fatehgarh in Farrukhabad. Its water level has reached near the red mark in Narora, Bulandshahr.

Delhi flooding claimed a fresh victim, as a three-year-old boy drowned in north Delhi’s Kirari area with his family blaming it on the negligence of the administration.

The deceased, identified as Arif, was the only brother among his five sisters.

His father Ashraf Ali, a rickshaw puller, said his son was playing alone when the incident happened on Saturday evening.

The National Disaster Response Force on Sunday called of its search and rescue operation in Wednesday’s landslide in Irshalwadi in Maharashtra’s Raigad district, state minister Uday Samant said.

Addressing a press conference, Samant, who is guardian minister of Raigad, told reporters even the kin of those missing believe they are buried under the rubble and are okay with calling off the rescue operation. Nobody should crowd the landslide site as section 144 (of Code of Criminal Procedure) has been imposed restricting movement of people, the minister said.

“There were 228 people in the village, of which 57 are untraceable, while bodies of 27 have been recovered. Of the 43 families in the hamlet, two families perished completely, while 41 families, comprising 144 persons, have been provided shelter in a temple,” he said.

Isolated extremely heavy rainfall activity is likely over Konkan, the Ghat areas of central Maharashtra, and Gujarat, while there will be an increase in rainfall in northwest India from July 25, the India Meteorological Department has forecast.

Light to moderate rain is likely to be witnessed in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Uttar Pradesh from July 25 and 27. Heavy rainfall is very likely over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and east Rajasthan between July 23 and 27, and over West Rajasthan on July 25 and 26.

The Central part of the country is also likely to witness continuous rainfall till July 27.

As heavy rains continued in the state, a landslide was reported on the Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai Express Highway on Sunday night, affecting vehicular movement.

Till now, no injuries have been reported due to the landslide. Vehicular traffic on all three lanes of the expressway has been halted for now. READ MORE

Indian Meteorological Department on Sunday issued an ‘orange’ alert for heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places in Palghar, Raigad, Ratnagiri, and Sindhudurg districts. The alert was issued for Monday.