An earthquake measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale struck Indonesia’s Sulawesi island on Friday but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The US Geological Survey put the hypocentre of the tremor at a depth of 18 km and the epicentre at a point 30.5 km north of the city of Donggala, reports Efe news.

At least 557 people died and almost 400,000 were displaced by four earthquakes with intensities varying between magnitude-6.3 and 6.9 which struck Lombok island between July 29 and August 19.

Indonesia’s deadliest ever tremor struck Sumatra island in 2014 and triggered a tsunami that killed nearly 280,000 people in around a dozen countries along the Indian Ocean, with the biggest number of casualties registered in Indonesia.

Indonesia sits on the Pacific Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activities, where some 7,000 earthquakes, mostly moderate, are recorded each year.

The Yamuna river here is flowing above the danger level following release of water from Haryana’s Hathnikund barrage in the wake of heavy rains and flash floods in parts of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab.

The states have witnessed downpours in the last few days due to which the water level in the rivers have increased.

The warning level mark of the Yamuna is 204 metres and the danger level mark is 204.83 metres.

Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash has called an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon to decide the steps to deal with exigencies.

“The water level of river Yamuna at Delhi Railway Bridge at 11 a.m. was 205.12 meters,” a Flood and Control Department official told IANS.

“The water is showing a rising trend and is expected to go up as Delhi is witnessing rains and more water is being released every hour from the barrage,” he added.

The water discharged from Hathnikund barrage, which provides drinking water to the national capital, normally takes 72 hours to reach the city, he said.

Delhi had witnessed the worst ever floods in 1978 when the river’s level touched a record 207.49 meters.

A foreign tourist couple, who were trapped in snow in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kargil district, was rescued on Tuesday, officials said.

“Micheal Mobius and his wife got trapped in snow between Pudzong La and Rang dum on Monday,” a district administration official said.

“They somehow sent a distress signal to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, where we received an SoS following which the Deputy Commissioner of Kargil immediately requested the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir and Commissioner Civil Aviation Jammu and Kashmir to request the Air Force to launch a rescue operation.”

An aerial rescue operation was launched on Tuesday morning and the couple were air-lifted by an Indian Air Force chopper to Leh, according to the official.

The couple is currently undergoing treatment at a hospital.

IANS

Within a month of the Majerhat bridge collapse here in West Bengal, that claimed three lives, an under construction bridge in South 24 Parganas collapsed on Monday, police said.

“Part of the under construction bridge over Kalnagini river in Kawkdeep area collapsed at around 10 a.m. No one has been injured in the incident,” a state police officer said.

“The reason of the collapse is yet to be ascertained. Senior officials have reached the spot,” he added.

A portion of the Majerhat bridge in south Kolkata collapsed on September 4, killing three and injuring at least 19 others. Another canal bridge collapsed in Darjeeling district’s Siliguri on September 7, injuring a truck driver.

IANS

The death toll in two major landslides that struck the Philippines after super typhoon Mangkhut barreled the island nation last week has climbed to 95, authorities said.

As of Sunday night, officials said a total of 49 bodies have been pulled out the mining town of Itogon’s rubble in the north, Xinhau news agency reported.

The rescue workers had also pulled out another 46 bodies from the landslide site at the foot of a quarrying site in Naga City.

In Itogon, a disaster official said at least 19 others were still missing after mud and boulders crashed on a bunkhouse where miners and their families sought refuge as Mangkhut hit Luzon Island on September 15.

Rescuers were trying to locate 40 others still missing in the Naga City landslide that buried some 30 houses.

Disaster officials counted nearly 200 deaths in typhoon Mangkhut and the twin landslides that struck the Philippines last week.

Nearly 1.6 million farmers and fisherfolks were affected by Mangkhut, the strongest typhoon to hit not only the Philippines but the region this year.

IANS

Moderate to heavy rainfall continued in most parts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh for the third day on Monday affecting normal life.

With the standing paddy and cotton crop almost ready-to-harvest, farmers said their crop was damaged due to the unseasonal rain.

In Punjab, districts downstream of rivers Sutlej, Beas and Ravi and in Haryana districts downstream of river Yamuna were put on alert on Monday due to heavy rainfall in the catchment areas of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Amritsar received over 145 mm of rain on Sunday. The maximum temperature in the city dropped to 23 degrees, 11 degrees below normal. A road there caved-in due to heavy rain on Sunday.

Water accumulated in the heritage walking area near the Golden Temple complex, causing problems for devotees and other visitors. Traffic was affected in various parts of both states.

In Chandigarh, traffic was affected as water accumulated at many places in the city. Complaints of water-logging were also received by authorities in the adjoining towns of Panchkula in Haryana and Mohali in Punjab.

Two persons were killed in a roof collapse in Nawanshahr district in Punjab, around 90 km from here, on Sunday.

Due to the incessant rainfall, the maximum temperature dropped at all places in both states. The maximum temperature was six to 11 degrees below normal.

Farmers in both Punjab and Haryana said the rain during this period was not good as the harvesting of the paddy crop was on. Paddy procurement was to officially begin on October 1.

They are worried that the moisture content in the paddy grains would be higher this time due to the rainfall. Officials of the Food and Supplies Departments in both states were expecting a bumper paddy crop.

An official spokesperson said elaborate arrangements have been made to procure the expected 200 lakh tonne of paddy in Punjab alone this season.

Cotton farmers said that there was damage to their crop also.

IANS

The low-pressure area over East-Central Bay of Bengal has become ‘well-marked,’ and the latest outlook indicates that it would go on to become not just a depression but further into a deep depression.

A deep depression is second only to a tropical cyclone in intensity, and, in this manner, the ‘low’ would have strengthened three times rapidly to attain this status by Thursday.

Landfall by Thursday night
The system would move west-north-west towards North Andhra Pradesh and South Odisha coasts and cross the coast between Kalingapatnam and Puri during late Thursday night or early Friday morning.

India Met Department (IMD) has forecast heavy rain over the North-Eastern States, Coastal Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rayalaseema and Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Wednesday. Thunderstorms accompanied with lightning may line up over over Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Interior Karnataka, Konkan, Goa and Madhya Maharashtra.

‘Rough’ to ‘very rough’ (wave heights between eight ft and 20 ft) have been warned of over South and Central Bay, Andaman Sea and along and off Andhra Pradesh, Bengal and Odisha coasts. Fishermen are advised not to venture into these areas.

As for tomorrow (Thursday), the rains may grow in intensity with heavy to very heavy rain accompanied by extremely heavy falls lashing Odisha and North Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

Heavy rain forecast
It would be heavy to very heavy over Chhattisgarh and Telangana, while being heavy over the plains of Bengal, Jharkhand, Rayalaseema and Karnataka. Thunderstorm accompanied with lightning is likely at isolated places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Interior Karnataka.

Forecasts for the next three days is as follows.

Friday: Heavy to very heavy rain over Odisha, Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh, while it will be heavy over Assam, Meghalaya, plains of Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, Telangana and Karnataka.

‘Rough’ to ‘very rough’ sea conditions are possible over West-Central and North Bay and along and off Andhra Pradesh,West Bengal and Odisha coasts.

Saturday: Heavy to very heavy rain over East Rajasthan; heavy over Assam, Meghalaya, West Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Vidarbha.

Withdrawal on hold
Saturday: Heavy to very heavy rain for Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh and heavy rain over West Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. In this manner, the rains penetrating right into West Rajasthan would have forced the withdrawal scheme for the South-West monsoon from Rajasthan back to the drawing board.

Earlier in the morning, the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre had located the causative ‘low’ over East-Central Bay of Bengal to 714 km South of Chittagong in Bangladesh.

IMD had not referred to the scope strengthening of the depression until Wednesday noon, apparently because the sea-surface had not warmed much beyond the threshold 27-29 deg Celsius. But vertical wind shear values, which refer to sudden change in wind direction with height that unsettles a building system, are low to moderate at 37 km/hr.

They tend to be high during an active monsoon which is why tropical cyclones are rare during that phase of the monsoon. But cyclones tend to develop during the monsoon transition phase. For this reason, the sea behaviour is closely monitored during the months of May (just ahead of the onset of the South-West Monsoon) and September-October (ahead of the North-East monsoon).

The death toll from storm Florence has risen to at least 37 in the US East Coast, including two mental health patients drowned in a van overtaken by floodwaters, the media reported on Wednesday.

The two patients died on Tuesday after the vehicle carrying them, staffed by two Horry County deputies in South Carolina, was swept away by flooding from Florence, the Horry County Sheriff’s Office confirmed, Xinhua reported.

“Despite persistent and ongoing efforts, floodwater rose rapidly and the deputies were unable to open the doors to reach the individuals inside the van,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump visited storm-ravaged North Carolina on Wednesday, while the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, pleaded with thousands of evacuees not to return home just yet, warning the flooding is far from over and will get worse in some places.

“I know for many people this feels like a nightmare that just won’t end,” Cooper said. Florence has claimed at least 27 lives in North Carolina.

Across Carolinas on Wednesday, many roads remained closed and thousands of people lack power. The risk of environmental damage also mounted, as human and animal waste was washed into floodwaters, local media reported.

Rivers are still rising in South Carolina and will continue throughout the week, the state’s Emergency Response Team said Wednesday morning.

North Carolina farms lost an estimated 3.4 million poultry birds and 5,500 pigs, while South Carolina cotton farmers were also hit hard as soaked ground could damage peanut crops, and hemp stems were reported blown over, local media said.

More than 15,000 people remain in shelters and more than 200,000 customers are without power across North Carolina because of Florence, which made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane on Friday morning, according to state officials.

Though Florence weakened to a tropical storm later on Friday and to a tropical depression afterwards, it caused severe flooding and damage.

(IANS)

Light to moderate widespread rain will lash the southern city of Bengaluru till Thursday, an official from Karnataka’s weather monitoring centre said on Monday.

As of Monday morning 8.30 a.m., parts of Bengaluru received maximum rainfall measuring up to 14.1 cm and an average rainfall of 3 cm across the Bengaluru Urban district, the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) said.

“Due to low pressure created in the Bay of Bengal, the city is expected to continue to receive light to moderate rain over the next few days,” KSNDMC Director, G.S. Srinivasa Reddy, told IANS here.

The south interior districts of the state, including Mysuru and Chamarajanagar also received moderate rain over the past 24 hours.

“Monsoon activity is likely to increase in the north interior districts of Kalaburagi, Bidar and Raichur,” Reddy added.

The state capital, however, is on alert and is prepared to act in case the intensity of the rain increases, an official said.

“We have already cleared out many of the storm water drains across the city to prevent flash floods in any region, in case of heavy rain,” the city’s civic body spokesman, L. Suresh, told IANS.

On August 15 last year, Bengaluru received its heaviest downpour in a century measuring up to 18 cm within a span of three hours, which wreaked havoc across the city, crippling normal life, flooding hundreds of roads and houses.

(IANS)

After our neighbouring state Kerala witnessed unexplainable instances of rivers getting dry, it is now the turn of undivided Dakshina Kannada district, wherein the flow of water in most of the rivers is said to be decreasing when compared to last year.

Due to this, social activists, environmentalists and civilians are worried about the situation of drinking water during summer.

Everyone seemed relaxed because it was earlier said that the district would not face any drinking water issues this year because the region received favourable rainfall.

Usually, rain starts lashing in the month of June here. However, the district has got rainfall continuously since mid-April this year. Despite the good rainfall, the water level dipping day by day is creating a sense of panic. Environmentalists opine that the existing water level is equal to the water level, which usually prevails in the month of January, which means our water bodies are showing a deficit of three months.

The report of groundwater authority in Dakshina Kannada district confirmed that the water level has gone down this year when compared to last year. The department has already analysed the existing water level in most of the rivers in Dakshina Kannada district. Sullia taluk, which is also called the green belt of Dakshina Kannada district too is likely to be hit this year, according to the report that says that water level of Payaswini river in Sullia has dipped around 2.45 meter after the Jodupala landslide and deluge episode.

In Uppinangadi also, sand beds are seen in the river even before the end of the monsoon. The water level in Kumaradhara and Nethravathi too is not satisfactory.

Lokesh, a farmer of Uppinagady, who uses Nethravathi river for irrigation purpose says that his arecanut plantation would definitely go dry this year due to lack of water in the river. “I wonder how the flow of the water lessened even after a good rainfall this year,” he adds.

Give a five-year break to the Western Ghats

Social activist M G Hegde says that the unscientific development works taken up by the government as well as private individuals has resulted in dire consequences like the flood, drought, landslide among others.

” Give a break of at least five years to the Western Ghats. Let her rejuvenate,” he says adding that the government should not go ahead with any projects which destroys the Western Ghats including the Yettina Hole project. As the western ghats are considered as the heart of Karnataka, it should not be touched. If we continue to wound our heart, we are threatening ourselves, he says.

Meanwhile, many have urged the government to take steps to analyse the reason behind this phenomenon and do what is necessary to avert eventualities.