<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".
The police tried to stop anguished relatives from streaming into one of the worst affected areas of China's massive earthquake on Sunday, as another strong aftershock hit the area and the death toll rose to nearly 32,500. Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating 7.9 magnitude quake, and officials are concerned the tremors could bring down more unstable buildings and rupture already leaky dams. Six days after the main quake hit, the overall death toll stands at nearly 32,500, state news agency Xinhua reported, with a further 220,000 injured.
The Asian Development Bank has embarked upon an ambitious plan to work out long-term strategy with the help of international experts to control the perennial problem of flood in Assam. The Bank which will fund and execute project, has identified four vulnerable areas of the state for its first-phase of work. These are Palas bari in Kamrup district, Kaziranga, Dibrugarh town and Matmora in worst flood-hit Dhemaji district.
A leading aid group warned yesterday that thousands of young children in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar could starve to death within weeks unless emergency food supplies reach them soon. Save the Children said on its website that the youngsters could succumb to hunger "within two to three weeks". "We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK.
With a parliamentary panel finding misutilisation and diversion of tsunami relief funds, an empowered group of ministers (e-GOM) headed by union home minister Shivraj Patil has undertaken a review of the Rs 10,000 crore rehabilitation scheme. Since 2008-09 is the deadline for implementation of the rehabilitation scheme, the e-GoM issued a directive to the affected states and union territories that the work should be expedited to complete the task within the stipulated time.
In a system with a centuries-long tradition of austere leaders laying down the law from behind their palace walls, China's response to the worst natural disaster in 30 years revealed a nation in the throes of political change. The China that emerged from the wreckage of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province looked surprisingly modern, flexible and if not democratic, at least open.
On the buckled road to the epicentre of China's deadliest earthquake in decades, the stream of refugees fleeing collapsed homes and unburied corpses is almost outnumbered by a flow of anxious families trekking in. The town of Wenchuan and hundreds of smaller settlements have been cut off from traffic and telephones since the massive tremor on Monday which Beijing say may have killed more than 50,000.
China began three days of national mourning on Monday for more than 30,000 victims of an earthquake that struck a week ago. Public entertainment will be suspended, flags kept at half-mast and a three-minute silence observed to mark exactly a week since the quake, the government said. The national flag in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing flew at half mast after a ceremony at dawn. The Olympic torch relay, currently on its domestic leg ahead of the Aug. 8 opening in Beijing, will likewise be suspended for three days.
Cyclone Nargis may have done more than just wreck Burma's cities. It may also spell doom for the government.
Thousands of persons are being evacuated from around a lake and a river at risk of bursting in south-west China's earthquake-affected zone, said relief officials on Saturday. The disaster relief headquarters in the Beichuan County said it received reports of water levels reaching danger point at the Laoyingyan section of the Qianjiang River on Saturday. The river has been blocked by landslips caused by the earthquake. "It hasn't burst yet, but we asked people to leave because we need to prepare for the worst,' said an official.
The most powerful earthquake in China since 1950 shows the nation's insurance industry is decades behind those of the world's biggest economies. Just 5 per cent of the more than $20 billion of damages from the quake in Sichuan province is covered by insurance, according to estimates from an official at the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, who declined to be identified.
