The official death toll from lightning strikes and storms rose to 76 on Friday as annual monsoon rains tore through India.
Lightning strikes, powerful storms rage across the nation.
LUCKNOW: The official death toll from lightning strikes and powerful storms rose to 76 on Friday as annual summer monsoon rains tore through India ahead of schedule, authorities said. Seventeen more deaths were reported from late Thursday night in three Indian states in addition to 58 people who died earlier.
Lightning killed three people while three others died overnight after raging winds wrecked homes at Allahabad, in northern Uttar Pradesh, police spokesman Manish Awasthi said.
A total of 32 deaths have been reported from Uttar Pradesh alone since May 18 when the monsoon hit India's Andaman archipelago and then swirled up the west coast states of Kerala, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Maharashtra government spokesman Bhushan Gagrani announced 19 rain-related deaths during the week in the western state. "All the deaths were caused due to lightning strikes or collapsing walls," Gagrani said.
In Gujarat's Narmada, Dahod and Sabarkanta districts, six people were killed and four sustained burns in lightning strikes. Two teenagers died in Ahmedabad as the first monsoon rains lashed the state on Thursday, police said. And at least four others died in rain-related accidents in Gujarat. The state alerted disaster management units of possible floods as the local meteorological department warned of heavy rains in coming days.
Nine of the 58 reported dead were from West Bengal this week. Three deaths were reported in the southern state of 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 on Friday for two missing boats with 22 fishermen aboard.
Arunachal Pradesh, meanwhile on Friday sounded a flood alert after recording 478 millimetres of rains in two districts. Communications between the districts and the nearby state, Assam snapped and numerous landslides blocked roads, an official said.
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