<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of In Re: News Item titled "Are missing palm trees causing more lighting deaths in Bihar appearing in ‘The Times of India’ dated 29.05.2025".
This manual focuses on construction of hazard resistant masonry buildings as well as restoration and retrofitting of the existing masonry buildings .It has been observed that even RCC construction is also often done in a non-engineered manner. Hence, some basic but critical information is provided on RCC construction also.
Up to 1.3 million people in China's Sichuan Province have been ordered to evacuate to higher grounds for fear of a major "quake lake' burst as a result of flooding and strong aftershocks. Tan Li, Party Secretary of Mianyang City and chief of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, on Friday issued an order that people living downstream from Tangjiashan, a swelling quake-induced lake, must evacuate. The mass evacuation, dubbed a "drill' by local government officials, is said to make way for a possible flood-discharging operation set for the weekend.
Myanmar's government is forcing cyclone victims out of refugee camps and "dumping' them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies, the U.N. said on Friday. Eight camps set up earlier by the government for homeless victims in the Irrawaddy Delta town of Bogale were "totally empty' as the clearout continued, UNICEF official Teh Tai Ring told a meeting of aid groups. "The government is moving people unannounced,' he said, adding that authorities were "dumping people in the approximate location of the villages, basically with nothing.'
It is unfortunate that the Government of Assam has not yet been able to fully prepare itself to mitigate the sufferings of the people during floods and on most occasions, the concerned departments of the Government start the preparations to deal with the natural calamity only during the monsoon season. Last year, the State faced one of the worst ever floods, which affected all but one district of the State, but till now, most of the flood prone districts are not well equipped to deal with such a situation.
Yangon: Myanmar's ruling junta lashed out at foreign aid donors on Friday, saying cyclone victims did not need supplies of "chocolate bars' and could instead survive by eating frogs and fish. The New Light of Myanmar newspaper, a government mouthpiece, also warned foreign relief workers could snoop inside homes, and condemned donors for linking aid money to full access to the hardest-hit regions in the Irrawaddy delta.
China's response to quake puts India to shame When Lisbon shook in 1755, Voltaire asked if God was at all just. Why did he not instead shift the earth under London and Paris which were infinitely more sinful? When the earthquake hit Sichuan earlier this month, many Chinese too wondered if this was a divine intervention. Had they done something terribly wrong that such devastation should visit them? As the death toll began to mount, this sentiment became increasingly palpable all over China.
Myanmar's military government appeared Friday to be reasserting its authority over cyclone relief operations as aid officials said it was forcing survivors out of refugee camps and hindering the access it had promised foreign aid workers. A U.N. official said the junta was making cyclone survivors leave government refugee camps and "dumping' them near their devastated villages with virtually no aid supplies.
Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating earthquake threatened to breach its dam. Hundreds of Chinese troops have been working around the clock to drain Tangjiashan lake in Sichuan province. The lake formed above Beichuan town in the Mianyang region when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake that killed more than 68,000 people.
Southwest monsoon missed its date with the Kerala coast on Thursday but a top weather scientist sought to play the incident down saying it was not a "sign of worry.' "True, the onset over Kerala has not happened,' Ajit Tyagi, Director General of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said here. The IMD had earlier forecast that the southwest monsoon will hit the Kerala coast on May 29, four days ahead of its normal June 1 onset.
