110 dead in four days due to heavy rains across country; Patna worst hit

As many as 13 deaths were also reported on Saturday from Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in incidents triggered by heavy rains

Nearly 110 people died in rain-related incidents across the country in the past four days, with Uttar Pradesh reporting the maximum deaths, while incessant rainfall in Bihar has badly hit normal life, with almost all areas of capital city Patna under knee-deep waters and people struggling to meet their daily needs.

In what the weather department said could be the longest delayed withdrawal of Monsoon, rains continued to lash several states including Bihar, where at least 13 people have died over the past 48 hours, while large swathes were inundated, affecting railway traffic, healthcare services, schools and disrupting power supply. In Uttar Pradesh, at least 79 people have died since Thursday. According to a state government report, 25 people died on Saturday, 18 lost their lives on Friday and 36 the day before.

In Gujarat, three women drowned after their car was swept away at a flooded causeway in Rajkot district on Sunday following heavy rains in several parts of Saurashtra region, officials said. As many as 13 deaths were also reported on Saturday from Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in incidents triggered by heavy rains…

Read More: Patna Flood

Delhi’s air toxic, but these 5 Indian cities are even worse: WHO report

In May, the World Health Organisation said Delhi was the sixth-most polluted city in the country

That time of year when Delhi makes the news for its severely polluted air is back with a vengeance. On November 8, the day after Diwali, pollution in the city reached the “severe-plus emergency” category because of the widespread use of firecrackers. And while people in Delhi can testify to just how bad it gets, what’s even more surprising is that there are five other Indian cities that fare even worse when it comes to PM 2.5 levels.

PM 10 refers to particulate matter with a diameter below 10 μm; PM 2.5 refers to that with a diameter below 2.5 μm. PM 2.5 is generally considered more harmful since its smaller size enables it to enter the lungs and cause more damage than larger particles can.|Delhi Air Pollution 

According to a report released by the World Health Organisation in May this year, Kanpur, Faridabad, Varanasi, [BS]Gaya and Patna are even more polluted than Delhi. In the list of the 15 most polluted cities in the world, 14 are in India. Almost all of them lie in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Bihar.

While Kanpur ranked at one in the WHO’s list, a Reuters report pointed out that the city has a hard time tracking air quality. “Every week a lung cancer patient walks in; earlier we would get one in three months,” Prem Singh, head of the department of medicine in Kanpur’s Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Memorial Medical College, told Reuters.|Business Standard