Heavy rain likely in Delhi over next few days, IMD issues orange alert
New Delhi, Jun 29: Delhi is likely to receive heavy rainfall for the next three days as the weather office issued an 'orange' alert in the national capital on Saturday, the weather office said.
Parts of Delhi, including Rohini and Burari, received rains on Saturday morning. According to the Met department, 8.9 mm of rainfall was recorded at Safdarjung, the city's primary weather station, and 12.6 mm at Lodhi Road between 2.30 pm and 5.30 pm on Saturday.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted moderate to heavy rainfall on Saturday, with an even heavier spell anticipated on Sunday and Monday, the weather department said.
For the next seven days, the capital will experience moderate to heavy rain, and an 'orange alert' has been issued for the next three days, the IMD said in its seven-day forecast.
According to the IMD, moderate rain is defined as rainfall amounting to between 7.6 and 35.5 mm in a day, and heavy rain is defined as rainfall amounting to between 64.5 and 124.4 mm in a day.
The IMD issues four colour-coded warnings -- "green" (no action needed), "yellow" (watch and stay updated), "orange" (be prepared) and "red" (take action).
The maximum temperature recorded on Saturday was 35.6 degrees Celsius, which is 1.6 notches below normal, according to the IMD. The city recorded a minimum temperature of 28 degrees Celsius.
The relative humidity oscillated between 80 per cent and 97 per cent, according to an IMD bulletin.
The national capital recorded 228.1 mm of rainfall on Friday, the highest since 1936 for the month of June.
On the first day of heavy rain this season, the capital received one-third of its total monsoon rainfall.
Noting that Delhi receives nearly 650 mm of rainfall in the entire monsoon season, weather experts suggested these could be extreme weather events.
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MP cruise boat tragedy: Search ops expanded to trace four missing passengers
Jabalpur (PTI): Army divers and disaster response teams on Saturday expanded their search at Bargi Dam in Madhya Pradesh to locate a man and three children still missing after the cruise boat tragedy that claimed nine lives two days ago, officials said.
With 28 of the 41 identified passengers onboard the ill-fated cruise boat rescued safely, police are preparing to register an FIR in connection with the accident that occurred at the reservoir in Jabalpur district on Thursday evening, they said.
The search radius has been expanded to 5 km in the backwaters of the Bargi Dam, located downstream of the Narmada River, area sub-divisional officer of police (SDOP) Anjul Ayank Mishra told PTI.
Nine people drowned in the incident, while 28 were rescued, and efforts are ongoing to trace the missing persons, he said.
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According to the police, more than 200 rescuers, including around 20 Army divers airlifted from Agra, began the search operation at 5 am on Saturday to trace Kamraj, an employee of the Ordnance Factory in Khamaria, his son Tamil (5), Vijay Soni (6) and Mayuram (5).
Mishra said that an inquest case has been registered and the post-mortem of nine deceased persons has been completed.
"Our priority is to search for the missing persons. We will soon register an FIR," he said.
Investigators have said that CCTV footage near the boarding point showed 43 people heading towards the ill-fated boat, and the names of 41 persons, who boarded the vessel, have been ascertained so far.
Collector Raghvendra Singh confirmed that a search is underway for four missing persons.
The rescue operation, being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local divers, was briefly affected around 9 am due to strong winds.
The state government on Friday ordered a probe into the incident and dismissed three crew members after survivors alleged negligence and safety lapses, including failure to provide life jackets.
The government also banned the operation of similar vessels in the state.
The boat, operated by the state tourism department, sank during a sudden storm around 6 pm on Thursday, and the wreckage was retrieved from the dam water on Friday, after the rescuers confirmed that there were no more bodies inside.
Eyewitnesses have said that strong winds made the water choppy, prompting passengers to raise an alarm and ask the crew to steer the vessel towards the riverbank.
A survivor alleged negligence by the crew and described a last-minute scramble for life jackets.
