53 dead in monsoon-related incidents

LUCKNOW: The death toll from lightning strikes and powerful storms rose to 53 on Friday as annual summer monsoon rains tore through India ahead of schedule, the authorities said.   

Seventeen more deaths were reported since late on Thursday night in three Indian states on top of the 36 people who died earlier in the week.   

Lightning killed three people while three others died overnight after gusting winds wrecked homes at Allahabad, in Uttar Pradesh, police spokesman Manish Awasthi told AFP in the state capital Lucknow.   

Thirty-two of the deaths have been reported from Uttar Pradesh since May 18, when the monsoon hit India's Andaman archipelago and then swirled up the west coast states of Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat.   

In Gujarat's Narmada, Dahod and Sabarkanta districts, six people were killed and four sustained burns in lightning strikes while two teenagers died in Ahmedabad as the first monsoon rains lashed the state Thursday, police said.   

Gujarat alerted disaster management units to possible floods as the local meteorological department warned of heavy rains in coming days. Three rain-related deaths were reported in the Kerala, where the monsoon arrived a week earlier than usual but has already left a trail of destruction.   

The Kerala coastguard was searching for the second straight day Friday for two missing boats with 22 fishermen aboard, a PTI report said.  

In Mumbai, the early monsoon caused travel chaos this week and brought back memories of last year's devastating floods that left 400 dead. 

Municipal workers fanned out across the city to clear clogged drains and gutters blamed for the flooding.