The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a fresh warning of thunderstorms and squall for four states including West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh on Saturday. As per PTI reports, the death toll due to thunderstorm and lightning in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan has reached 124 in two days. At least 73 people were killed in Uttar Pradesh, 35 killed in Rajasthan, eight in Telangana, six in Uttarakhand and two in Punjab. More than 300 injured in five states due to thunderstorm and lightning in the last two days.
The meteorological department has said that thunderstorm, accompanied with gusty winds, was “very likely” at isolated places in western parts of Uttar Pradesh today. A spokesperson of the MeT department said Saharanpur, Muzzafarnagar, Bijnore, Baghpat and Meerut might be hit by a storm. On Wednesday, a high-intensity hail and dust storm-ravaged parts of Uttar Pradesh leaving 75 people dead and 87 injured in 23 districts of the state, official sources said. They said 331 cattle had perished in the storm in which Agra district was the worst affected.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath rushed back from Karnataka last night, cutting short his election tour amid opposition flak for staying away from his own state even after a storm claimed 75 lives there. The chief minister today met rain & dust storm affected people at a hospital.
Yesterday, in a thunderstorm warning from 5th May to 7th May, the Indian Meteorological Department said thunderstorm accompanied with squall is very likely at isolated places over Uttarakhand, West Bengal & Sikkim and Odisha. “Thunderstorm accompanied with gusty winds very likely at isolated places over Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, East Rajasthan, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, north coastal Andhra Pradesh, south Interior Karnataka, Interior Tamil Nadu and Kerala,” read the IMD statement.
Squall and rains also hit Delhi on Wednesday, with wind speeds reaching 59 km per hour in the evening. The temperature dropped to 31.4 degrees Celsius from 36.4 degrees Celsius that day.