<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".
A sudden and violent storm has caused havoc to 16 villages in Rowta area here recently. Sources said that 4800 families borne the brunt of the calamity. Many families had to take shelter at Barabazar High School, sources added. The storm had uprooted several trees, damaged electric posts and blown away house-roofs. Two persons were reportedly injured during the storm.
Sources said that the river island of Majuli which lies on the other side faces a threat of being submerged by river waters of the Brahmaputra in case the embankment is breached. "Majuli, which has considerably decreased in size due to large scale erosion faces threat of extinction if flooding and erosion continue unabated,' the source added. "The Centre and State may be pumping crores into various anti-erosion projects in Majuli every year but all these are being literally washed away by the mighty Brahmaputra,' the source said.
Chinese engineers are starting to make headway against lakes that have formed behind landslides, threatening yet more devastation on the earthquake-stricken valleys downstream. Last week's big tremor changed the landscape of northern Sichuan province, as mountainsides were obliterated along the Longmenshan fault. In Hongguang, in northeastern Sichuan, the earthquake caused both sides of a valley to slide, burying three villages and 900 people. The Qingzhu River is trapped behind. "The mountains merged," said Gao Xiao, who barely escaped a landslide that roared past her house.
Four people were killed and close to 5,000 forced out of their homes amid heavy rain and flooding in central and southern Chile, and the evacuation figure could rise further, the government said on Thursday. Of those killed, two died in landslides, one was struck by a boulder and another was hit by a falling tree. Television images showed streets turned into rivers in the port town of Valparaiso, where 93 mm (3.7 inches) of rain fell in 24 hours during two storm fronts.
China said the death toll from last week's powerful earthquake jumped to more than 51,000, while the government appealed Thursday for millions of tents to shelter homeless survivors. The confirmed number of dead rose to 51,151, a jump of almost 10,000 from the day before, Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin told a news conference. Another 29,328 people remained missing and nearly 300,000 were hurt in the May 12 quake centered in Sichuan province, he said.
China vowed on Wednesday to deal severely with anyone found responsible for shoddy state building work, as parents demanded to know why last week's earthquake destroyed so many schools, killing thousands of children. Nine days after the massive tremor hit mountainous Sichuan province in southwestern China, rescuers were still finding survivors. A woman was pulled alive from a tunnel at a hydropower plant in the town of Hongbai, state media reported. The number of dead and missing rose to more than 74,000, with a further 247,000 hurt.
Thousands of panic-stricken people stayed out in the open overnight in the quake-ravaged Sichuan province after a government warning about a strong aftershock, as China struggled to find shelters for some 50 lakh rendered homeless in the worst natural calamity in three decades. The stories of miraculous survivals meanwhile continued to pour in with rescue workers pulling out a 31-year-old man, who spent 179 hours under the rubble of a power plant.
Heavy rainfall in the Southeast and record snowpack in the Rockies have eased dramatically the nation's worst drought in more than a century. Drought conditions are the least severe since January 2006. A quarter of the USA is suffering some form of drought today, down from 65% last summer, federal agencies said. In the Southeast, where drought has been most severe, the area in drought has plummeted from 86% in August to 40% today.
China raised the number of dead or missing from a devastating earthquake to more than 70,000 on Tuesday, as rescuers found another survivor eight days after the huge tremor hit. A government statement said the number killed had now topped 40,000, and state news agency Xinhua reported that a further 32,000 were missing. Authorities had previously said they expected the final death toll to exceed 50,000. More than 247,000 were injured.
Myanmar's junta has given the World Food Program permission to use helicopters to send aid to cyclone survivors, the United Nations said on Tuesday, as flags flew at half-staff across the country to mourn the dead. The first day of a three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after Cyclone Nargis hit in early May, leaving 134,000 people dead or missing.
