Flood Fury

Eight people, including six children returning from school, have gone missing in Sri Lanka when the farm tractor they were traveling on was swept away by floods triggered by heavy rains, police said Wednesday. Army and navy troops were deployed to rescue victims and provide food and other essentials to those affected. Sri Lanka has experienced heavy downpours and strong winds over the past two days that have flooded homes, fields and roads and forced authorities to suspend train services in tea-growing mountain areas. In the worst incident, a farm tractor carrying 11 school children was swept away Tuesday evening in the eastern region of the country, police said. Five children were rescued while six other children along with the driver and another adult are still missing in the incident near the town of Karaitivu. A search operation is underway, police said in a statement. Separately, a woman died when a brick wall collapsed on her in the mountainous region of Badulla in the centr

Thousands of livestock have perished, and tens of vehicles have been swept away by the floods

Authorities in southern Brazil rushed on Wednesday to rescue survivors of massive flooding that has killed at least 100 people, but some residents refused to leave belongings behind while others returned to evacuated homes despite the risk of new storms. Heavy rains and flooding in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul since last week also have left 128 people missing, authorities said. More than 230,000 have been displaced, and much of the region has been isolated by the floodwaters. More storms are expected in the state, with lightning strikes and wind gusts reaching up to 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) in the south, according to Ctia Valente, the meteorologist in the state's situation room. Staffers of the state's civil defense agency told The Associated Press they have been struggling to persuade residents of the city of Eldorado do Sul, one of the hardest hit by the floods, to leave their homes. It is located beside Porto Alegre, near the center of the state's coastline. At

Indian Coast Guard conducted rescue of stranded citizens and supplied relief materials such as food and medicine to the people in the flood-affected areas

Powerful winds began uprooting trees on the northeast Australian coast on Wednesday as Tropical Cyclone Jasper gathered strength while approaching the area. Jasper is forecast to intensify from a category 1 to category 2 storm on a 5-tier scale before it becomes the first cyclone of the current season to cross the Australian coast late on Wednesday, Queensland state Deputy Premier Steven Miles said. The cyclone is expected to cross the Queensland coast somewhere along a sparsely populated 200-kilometer (124-mile) stretch from the city of Cairns north to Hope Vale, an Aboriginal community of 1,000. Jasper is expected to lash the coast with winds of up to 140 kph (87 mph) as it crosses from the Coral Sea. This is a serious event and it has been some time since this part of the coast has seen a cyclone of this intensity, Miles told reporters in the state capital Brisbane. More than 90 people had left their homes for evacuation centres by Wednesday, Police Deputy Commissioner Shane ...

The toll in the Sikkim flash flood has increased to 37, while 78 people remain missing six days after the deluge was triggered by a cloudburst, officials said on Wednesday. Pakyong district accounted for the largest number of fatalities at 24, including 10 army personnel, followed by seven in Gangtok, four in Mangan and two in Namchi districts, they said. Another 78 people are still missing in several towns in the Teesta river basin across the four districts that were flooded, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority (SSDMA) said. Around 6,001 people have been either rescued or evacuated from the flood-affected areas and the number of injured persons is 30, it said. The count of people affected by the natural calamity stood at 87,300. A total of 3,773 people were rendered homeless and provided shelter in 24 relief camps in the four districts, the SSDMA said. The road network of the state was severely disrupted as 16 bridges, including nine in the heavily-ravaged Mangan dist

As many as 56 civilians stranded due to the recent flash floods were rescued by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in North Sikkim, the officials said on Sunday

Fourteen bodies have been found so far while 102 people, including 22 Army personnel, remained missing after a cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim triggered a flash flood in the Teesta river basin, officials said on Thursday. So far, 2,011 people have been rescued, while the calamity that happened on Wednesday affected 22,034 people, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority (SSDMA) said in its latest bulletin. The search for the 22 missing soldiers was continuing with a focus on the downstream areas as the fast-flowing river is likely to have carried them to the lower reaches, officials said. The state government has set up 26 relief camps in the four affected districts, the SSDMA said. A total of 1,025 people are taking shelter in the eight relief camps in Gangtok district, while the number of inmates at the 18 other relief camps was not available immediately. Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang visited Singtam, one of the worst affected areas, and took stock of the ..

Abdel-Hamid al-Hassadi survived the devastating flooding in eastern Libya, but he lost some 90 people from his extended family. The 23-year-old law graduate rushed upstairs along with his mother and his elder brother, as heavy rains lashed the city of Derna on the evening of September 10. Soon, torrents of water were washing away buildings next to them. We witnessed the magnitude of the catastrophe, al-Hassadi said in a phone interview, referring to the massive flooding that engulfed his city. We have seen our neighbours' dead bodies washing away in the floods." Heavy rains from Mediterranean storm Daniel caused the collapse of the two dams that spanned the narrow valley that divides the city. That sent a wall of water several metres high through its heart. Ten days after the disaster, al-Hassadi and thousands of others remain in Derna, most of them waiting for a word about relatives and loved ones. For Hassadi, it's the 290 relatives still missing. The floods inundated as much as

Water has started to recede from flood-hit areas of Ferozepur district even as relief operations continued in villages near the banks of the Sutlej river, officials said on Monday. More than 3,000 people have been rescued so far, they said. On Monday, 1.60 lakh cusec of water was released downstream from the Harike headworks and 1.55 lakh cusecs from the Hussainiwala headworks, according to the officials. Teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Army, Border Security Force and the Punjab Police are assisting the district administration in the relief and rescue operation. Four additional NDRF teams have joined the two deployed earlier to evacuate the stranded people. "Around 28 boats have been pressed into service to evacuate the people. At one time, eight to 10 people are being rescued," said an official, adding that efforts are being made to convince those who are still in their villages to move to safer locations. "The water level receded today and it will also h

The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm's way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding. The flooding has all the hallmarks of a catastrophe juiced by climate change, but it is too early to formally assign blame to global warming, several scientists tell The Associated Press. It occurred in a country that did little to cause the warming, but keeps getting hit, just like the relentless rain. This year Pakistan has received the highest rainfall in at least three decades. So far this year the rain is running at more than 780% above average levels, said Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute and a member of Pakistan's Climate Change Council. Extreme weather patterns are turning more frequent in the region and Pakistan is not an ...

The government of Canada's British Columbia declared a state of emergency in the Pacific province due to floods and mudslides caused by rainstorms in the last few days.

With reference to "Flood fury" (August 1), it is highly intriguing to observe that the entire nation currently faces nature's fury in the form of the widespread floods. The flooding of vast areas across the country has become more of an annual ritual. It is important to point out that some parts are still confronted with the problem of scanty rainfall at the same time. The editorial disturbingly reveals that along with lightning strikes, the floods have claimed 85 lives in the last few days in Assam, Bihar and Odisha. There are also reports about the displacement of an estimated 6.8 million people.Media reports have also shown the pathetic conditions prevailing in some of the nation's "smart cities" such as New Delhi, Bengaluru and Gurgaon soon after rainfall, which reflect the abject failure of the respective administrations. The prolonged traffic jam faced by motorists in Gurgaon was unprecedented, and left the state government red-faced owing to its inability to resolve the problem

With reference to "Flood fury" (August 1) rains are always a test of the quality of urban infrastructure. The country does not seem to draw any lessons from each instance of floods - be it in Kashmir, Chennai or even Uttarakhand. Gurgaon is seen as a "slum of the rich" - a town of the affluent but with poor infrastructure. Seventy per cent of its water needs are being met from below ground which has led to a sharp decline in the water table in the last 20 years, while only 40 per cent of the town has sewer lines. As for Bengaluru, a 1005 per cent increase in concretisation (paved surfaces) during 1973-2016 has resulted in an adverse impact on the garden city's wetlands, green spaces and groundwater levels. No wonder, both the cities sank.One wonders when elementary sense will dawn on our cities to stop encroachment on spaces like catchment areas and wetlands that are meant to receive floodwaters and replenish groundwater. Drains have to be regularly de-silted and cleared of plastic so