India has suffered another major disaster that caused the death of at least 33 people after a deadly Cyclone Tauktae hit a part of the country.
The cyclone which made landfall on the night of Monday, 17th May is said to be the deadliest in 2 decades with the 130mph winds that hit the state of Gujarat. The catastrophe sank a barge off the coast of Mumbai Siba Jackson.
78 people are still missing prompting the government to deploy three Indian Navy warships and helicopters on a search and rescue mission.
Counted among the dead are a teenage girl killed by a crumbling roof, an 80-year-old woman hit by a falling pole and a toddler crushed by a collapsing wall.
At least 6,000 villages are deprived of electricity, 40,000 trees uprooted and 16,000 homes destroyed by the storm.
By this morning, 19th May, hundreds of thousands still lack electricity while the government has succeeded in restoring power to a third of properties.
India’s Defence Ministry says its men have rescued more than 600 people after battling extreme weather conditions including 8m (26ft) waves.
One survivor told the Indian press that he jumped into the sea with his life jacket but was picked up by the navy.
A report said that navy helicopters rescued 35 crew members from a barge that ran adrift north of Mumbai while another barge has 90 members still missing.
The barges are owned by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, the largest crude and natural gas company in India. The company said the crew had been deployed to complete offshore drilling but the barges’ anchors ran adrift during the storm.
The cyclone is another disaster to hit the the Asian country whose healthcare needs are already overstretched with a surge in Covid19 cases. Covid19 alone has caused 4,529 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The Indian Meteorological Department said on Wednesday that the storm has subsided into a depression centred around the southern Rajasthan state and adjoining Gujarat region.