Death toll from India storms rises to 127 in two days

More than 127 people were killed after fierce dust storms lashed many parts of India on the intervening nights of Wednesday and Thursday.

News Deskbdnews24.com
Published : 4 May 2018, 07:48 AM
Updated : 4 May 2018, 07:49 AM

The winds were so violent that has left a trail of destruction, with houses flattened, trees uprooted and electricity poles in disarray.

The highest numbers of causalities were in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the storms claimed 112 lives. Uttar Pradesh reported 73 deaths in lightening, of which 46 were in Agra district alone, according to the Indian media.

As many as 39 people died in Rajasthan, followed by seven in Telangana, four in Uttarakhand and two each in Jharkhand and Punjab.

High-speed winds and lightning have devastated many villages, brought down walls and left scores injured.

A spokesperson for the Uttar Pradesh relief commissioner's office told a news agency the death toll was the highest from such storms in at least 20 years. Officials have said the death toll could rise over the coming days.

The fury of unusually strong winds and heavy rains lasted for up to three hours in many places on Wednesday night, but the full extent of the damage was known only on Thursday.

“I've been in office for 20 years and this is the worst I've seen," Hemant Gera, secretary for disaster management and relief in Rajasthan, told the BBC.

"We had a high intensity dust storm on 11 Apr –19 people died then - but this time it struck during the night so many people sleeping and couldn't get out of their houses when mud walls collapsed."

Meanwhile, according to weather experts, a cyclonic circulation over Haryana was the trigger for the deadly dust storm that swept parts of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, estimating that the wind speed during the storm may have gone up to 100 kilometres per hour.

Whereas in Delhi, where a milder version of the dust storm and thunderstorm struck, the wind speed was recorded as 69 kmph.