Thunderstorm, dust storm 'likely' tomorrow in 26 UP districts: Met office

Thunderstorm and dust storm with winds speeds of up to 70 km per hour are "very likely" tomorrow in 26 districts of Uttar Pradesh, the weather office warned today.

It said the districts that could be affected are Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharth Nagar, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Gorakhpur, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, Faizabad, Sultanpur, Azamgargh and Ambedkar Nagar.

The other districts are Mau, Deoria, Ballia, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Pratapgargh, Allahabad, Sant Ravidas Nagar, Varanasi, Chandauli, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra, it said.

The meteorological office also forecast rain in isolated parts of east Uttar Pradesh and said the weather is most likely to remain dry in west UP.

On May 9, several parts of the state were hit by a severe storm that left 18 dead and 27 others injured. Five people died in Etawah district, three each in Mathura, Aligarh and Agra, two in Firozabad and one each in Hathras and Kanpur Dehat.

Thunderstorms and lightning on May 2-3 killed 134 people and injured over 400 in UP, Rajasthan, Telangana, Utttarakhand and Punjab. UP was the worst affected, accounting for 80 deaths, most of them in Agra district in the western part of the state.