Maharashtra Landslide Toll Reaches 16, Shimla-Kinnaur Highway Blocked As Heavy Rains Lash Himachal — Top Points

In the weather forecast for Delhi, IMD said the national capital is unlikely to witness any rainfall during the next two days.

NDRF personnel during a search and rescue operation after a landslide at Irshalwadi village in Raigad district.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: At least 16 people were killed after a massive landslide hit a tribal village in Maharashtra’s Raigad following overnight rains on Thursday, news agency PTI reported. As many as 21 people were rescued after National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) had to suspend its rescue operations following downpour. Meanwhile, three persons died in separate rain-related incidents in Palghar district following incessant showers for the third consecutive day.

Chief Minister Eknath Shinde visited the landslide-hit Irshalwadi village to take stock of the situation and spoke to the personnel engaged in rescue operation. "Irshalwadi was not on the list of landslide-prone villages. Our priority now is to rescue those still trapped beneath the rubble,” PTI quoted CM Shinde as saying.

Here are the key updates:

• NDRF personnel suspended their search and rescue operation at the landslide site due to bad weather in the evening. The exercise will be resumed on Friday morning. "Due to continuous heavy rain and threat of more landslides as well as darkness, the NDRF has called off its operation for the day," PTI quoted an official as saying.
• In Palghar, three persons were travelling in a car when their vehicle veered off the road and fell into water by the roadside and drifted away. While locals managed to save two of them, the third person got swept away, PTI reported. In another incident, a man died after falling into a water-filled bund at Khamloli village, while in the third incident, a 19-year-old man drowned in Kapase lake where he went to swim with his friends.
• Authorities declared holiday for schools on Friday and Saturday in Palghar after India Meteorological Department (IMD) sounded a ‘red alert’ for “heavy to very heavy” rainfall in several places in the district and adjoining Thane in the next 48 hours.
• In the weather forecast for Delhi, IMD said the national capital is unlikely to witness any rainfall during the next two days. The maximum temperature was recorded at 38.4 degrees Celsius, three notches above the season's average, while the minimum temperature settled at 27.6 degrees Celsius on Thursday, PTI reported.
• The Tulsi Lake, that supplies drinking water to Mumbai, overflowed on Thursday after heavy rains lashed the city and suburbs. "The catchment area of the lake has been receiving rainfall in the last few days, as a result of which the lake overflowed today," PTI quoted a civic official as saying.
• Rains lashed parts of Odisha due to the formation of a low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal off the state coast on Thursday, PTI reported. IMD issued ‘orange alert’ for isolated places over Malkangiri, Koraput, Nabarangpur, Nuapada, Kalahandi and Kandhamal till Friday. The weather office also sounded a ‘yellow alert’ for Puri, Khurda, Nayagarh, Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Cuttack, Boudh, Sonepur, Bolangir and Bargarh.
• Flash floods damaged houses and agricultural land was inundated in Himachal Pradesh's Kamru Panchayat on Thursday. The Shimla-Kinnaur highway was blocked in the wake of heavy rains that resulted in overflowing Broni stream between Rampur and Jhakri. Weather office issued a yellow warning of heavy rains at isolated places till July 24.