Squalls, hailstorm kill seven in Tripura

At least seven people, including two children and an elderly man, were killed and over 30 injured as cyclonic storms accompanied by rains lashing several parts of Tripura since Friday left behind a trail of devastation, officials said here on Tuesday.

"Two people at Mohanpur, a 72-year-old man at Bishalgarh in western Tripura, two young people including a girl in Amarpur and another middle aged man in Belonia in southern Tripura were killed in separate incidents of lightning since Saturday night," an official told reporters.

A six-year-old boy was electrocuted when live electrical wires snapped by the cyclonic storm struck him at Dharmanagar in northern Tripura.

Thirty more people, including women and children, were wounded in these incidents and have been shifted to government hospitals, the official said.

The pre-monsoon rains accompanied by strong winds and hailstorm, also damaged more than 1,000 houses and killed many head of cattle across Tripura during the past five days.

Southern Tripura's Amarpur bore the worst brunt of the thunderstorm where over 200 kuccha houses and crops were severely damaged on Monday night, the official added.

Hundreds of trees, telephone and electric poles were uprooted in the seasonal nor-wester and also severely affected the movement of vehicles.

"Civil defence workers and district officials are busy providing relief. Telecommunications and power corporation personnel are working to restore communication lines and power supply," acting chief minister Manik Dey said.

He said that the district administrations have sanctioned Rs.1,000 to each affected family as immediate assistance.

The Meteorological department in Agartala on Tuesday forecast rains and cyclonic storms in the next 48 hours.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/141755" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-8c8aecb541157116c64ae27ff6e2f6da" value="form-8c8aecb541157116c64ae27ff6e2f6da" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="80915884" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.