Wild storms claim 70 lives in India

FE Team | Published: May 14, 2018 21:48:12

NEW DELHI, May 14 (Agencies): At least 70 people have been killed and over 100 injured after a fresh wave of violent sandstorms and thunderstorms battered India, officials said Monday.
At least 61 people have died in fierce dust storms across four Indian states since Sunday evening, with officials warning of more bad weather to come.
High-speed winds and lightning devastated many villages, bringing down homes and leaving dozens injured.
The northern state of Uttar Pradesh reported the highest death toll - 38. More than 70 people had died in dust storms in the state earlier in May.
Officials told BBC Hindi that casualties could go up further.
Twelve people were reported dead in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, which was also severely hit by the storms. Nine people were killed in the eastern state of West Bengal, while two people have been confirmed dead in Delhi.
Winds of over 100 kilometres (62 miles) per hour struck parts of north, east and southern India late Sunday, uprooting trees, electricity pylons and damaging houses, officials from federal and state disaster management agencies said.
Forty people were killed by hail and thunderstorms that brought down walls, trees and power pylons in Uttar Pradesh state, T. P. Gupta of the state disaster management department told AFP. Another 80 were injured by the winds that flattened nearly 40 houses across India's most populous state.
Another 14 people were killed Sunday by thunderstorms in West Bengal and 12 by lightning bolts in Andhra Pradesh.
The southern state had also been hit by more than 40,000 lightning bolts on May 01, killing 14 people in a matter of hours.
The latest storms also killed two people each in Bihar and the capital New Delhi where winds reached more than 100 kilometres an hour, national disaster management authorities said.
Indira Gandhi International Airport was closed for more than two hours because of the winds, with 70 flights diverted.
The deaths came just 10 days after a sandstorm left more than 84 dead, most of them in Agra-the city of the Taj Mahal.