23 people die in rain-related incidents, floods in Assam

New Delhi, Jun 14 (UNI) At least 15 people, including seven women and four children, were killed today in landslides across Arunachal Pradesh following incessant rains for the last 30 hours, throwing the transport and telecommunication networks out of gear.

Police said rescue operations were being hampered by the continued downpour, adding that the casualties could increase to over 20. Massive landslides were reported from across the state, with the National Highway as well as other state roads blocked.

In Maharashtra, four men of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) were killed in a warehouse collapse at Gadchiroli district of Vidarbha region.

They were killed when the warehouse in which they were accommodated, gave way yesterday after heavy rains. The men, from SRPF Group IV, were participants in a anti-naxalite operation in the district.

Heavy rains claimed four lives in Kutch during last 24 hours.

Two young boys drowned in a pond in Shirva-Kathada village in Mandavi. The pond was overflowing due to heavy downpour.

In another incident, a father-son duo died when lightning struck them in Mokhana village of Bhuj taluka. All parts of Kutch have received heavy rains. Port town of Mandavi in Kutch had received around 300 mm of rains in last 24 hours.

Heavy rains had caused water-logging in low-lying areas. Many schools were closed in Rajkot and some parts of Saurashtra and Kutch.

Arunachal Governor Gen (retd) J J Singh, in a statement, condoled the deaths and instructed the administration to launch rescue operations on a war footing.

He said the Deputy Commissioners had been instructed to update and implement the standard practices of disaster management, even as the administration waged a battle against the weather in rescuing the stranded people.

In the east several places in upper Assam were inundated following heavy rainfall in most parts of the state, including capital city Guwahati, which reeled under artificial flood in the forenoon.

Hundreds of villages across upper Assam, especially in North Lakhimpur district, were reported to have been submerged Torrential rainfall lashed several parts of North Bihar heralding the onset of monsoon in the state.

Heavy to very heavy rains are likely to occur at many places in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim.

Rain or thundershowers are likely to occur few places Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, east Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

Heavy rain or thundershowers are likely to occur in Himachal Pradesh and east Rajasthan.

The national capital also experienced a dip in minimum temperature to 25.2 degrees Celsius due to cool northwesterly winds.

The cool weather is likely to persist during the weekend and next week too with the weatherman forecasting increase in rainfall and thundershower during the next few days.

In the adjoining Uttar Pradesh the met department has predicted the south-west monsoon to enter the capital city within two days.

In the south, the IMD has issued heavy rainfall warning for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

''The southwest west monsoons are strong over the Andaman Sea.

One or two spells of rain may be heavy,'' the Met department release added.

Heavy to very heavy rains are also likely to occur in Saurashtra, Kutch, Konkan, Goa and coastal Karnataka. The southwest monsoon has been subdued in Marathwada, Rayalaseema and Tamil Nadu.

Mainly dry weather prevailed in Vidarbha, Marathwada, Telangana and Rayalaseema.

UNI Team AKJ AS1851