Lucknow Mathura: The death toll in the storm that hit parts of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday night has risen to 16, an official said on Thursday as the Met office issued another bad weather alert for the state.
"Four deaths were reported from Etawah, three each from Mathura and Aligarh, two each in Firozabad and Agra and one death each in Hathras and Kanpur Dehat on Wednesday night," an official spokesperson said. Twenty-seven others were injured in the calamity which affected nine districts, mostly in western Uttar Pradesh that had also borne the brunt of a previous storm on May 2-3.
The official said seven houses were damaged in Wednesday night's storm. Thirty-seven head of cattle perished. Two of the three deaths in Mathura district took place when electricity poles collapsed on the victims. Another person was killed when a tractor-trolley filled with hay toppled on him during the storm. Two victims were from the district's Mant tehsil.
The state government has given their families Rs 4 lakh each as compensation, Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma said during a visit to Mathura on Thursday. He said the loss to farmers not covered by the crop insurance scheme was being determined.The minister claimed that the losses would have been bigger had Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath not told the weather department to issue timely warnings.
On Thursday, a weather office spokesman warned of more thunderstorms accompanied by strong winds of up to 70 kmph on Saturday and Sunday at isolated places in eastern Uttar Pradesh. He said a dust storm too was "very likely" at certain places in western UP.
Last week's storm had killed 134 people and injured over 400 in five states, the Home Ministry had said. Uttar Pradesh was the hardest hit with 80 deaths, most of them in Agra district. Meanwhile, Adityanath on Thursday issued fresh directives to the administration to speed up relief operations.
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