New phone alerts for extreme weather may prevent casualties in India

When Cyclone Phailin hit India in late 2013 it became the largest storm to batter the subcontinent in over a decade. The storm, officially classified as a Category 5 tropical cyclone, affected more than 12 million people in India and neighboring countries, and required mass evacuations.

These evacuations revealed an urgent need for an effective alert system which could forewarn the majority of the population. A new paper published in Atmospheric Science Letters details how computer science undergraduates have created image based mobile phone alerts, connected to the Weather Research and Forecasting system.

India has a mobile phone subscriber base exceeding 929 million people and this is expected to touch 1.15 billion by the end of 2014. An alert system developed for mobiles could reach an estimated 97% of the population..

The paper details how during the 2013 storm the computer scientists were able to track its genesis, progression and landfall. By converting this information into images suitable for phones, they created a forecasting and warning system accessible to ordinary citizens.

"Cyclone alerts can save lives and property, but must be easily accessible," said Dr. Sat Ghosh. "The global perception of India's emerging IT prowess is lopsided. It is thought of as merely a manufacturing hub; however, our article puts the country's numerical literacy to practical use. The easy-to-use Weather Research and Forecasting model remains confined to an elite group of users, such as atmospheric scientists and weather forecasters. Our research explores how the WRF forecast can be interfaced with mobile telephony which has a deep penetration even in rural pockets of India."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Wiley. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

View the original article here

Floods kill dozens in India; more than 1 million flee

(AP) GAUHATI, India (AP) -- Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people in India's remote northeast over the last three days, officials and news reports said Monday. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Police in Gangtok said Monday that 21 bodies were recovered after flood waters washed away a highway in Sikkim state that the men were working on. Ten thousand villagers were cut off by the heavy road damage near the town of Chungthan in the mountainous region. At least eight others were feared missing after a landslide hit another part of Sikkim.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that at least four people have been killed by flooding over the last three days in the neighboring state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Assam state government said flood waters there have killed at least seven people and forced nearly a million to leave their homes.

Military helicopters have been dropping food supplies and helping rescue stranded villagers in the worst-hit parts of Assam, local officials said. In Tinsukhia district at least 150 people have been rescued by air force helicopters, local administrator Meenakshi Sundaram said.

He said river ferries were unable to reach at least one region because heavy timbers were floating down the Brahmputra river at high speed, making it very dangerous for boats.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Floods kill dozens in India; more than 1 million flee

(AP) GAUHATI, India (AP) -- Flash floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 30 people in India's remote northeast over the last three days, officials and news reports said Monday. More than a million people have been forced to flee their homes.

Police in Gangtok said Monday that 21 bodies were recovered after flood waters washed away a highway in Sikkim state that the men were working on. Ten thousand villagers were cut off by the heavy road damage near the town of Chungthan in the mountainous region. At least eight others were feared missing after a landslide hit another part of Sikkim.

The Press Trust of India news agency reported that at least four people have been killed by flooding over the last three days in the neighboring state of Arunachal Pradesh.

The Assam state government said flood waters there have killed at least seven people and forced nearly a million to leave their homes.

Military helicopters have been dropping food supplies and helping rescue stranded villagers in the worst-hit parts of Assam, local officials said. In Tinsukhia district at least 150 people have been rescued by air force helicopters, local administrator Meenakshi Sundaram said.

He said river ferries were unable to reach at least one region because heavy timbers were floating down the Brahmputra river at high speed, making it very dangerous for boats.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.

View the original article here

Rains, flooding kill dozens, maroon many in India (AP)

By BISWAJEET BANERJEE, Associated Press Biswajeet Banerjee, Associated Press – Mon Sep 26, 11:15 am ET

LUCKNOW, India – Monsoon rains destroyed mud huts and flooded wide swaths of northern and eastern India, killing at least 48 people in recent days and leaving hundreds of thousands marooned by raging waters, officials said Monday.

Those stranded took shelter atop trees, hills and rooftops in the eastern states of Orissa and Bihar and the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Rescue helicopters dropped food in hard-to-reach areas, while hundreds of boats ferried the stranded to safety.

But the rains, expected to continue for two more days, were holding up rescue efforts, officials said.

All 31 people killed over the weekend in Uttar Pradesh state died when the roofs of their mud houses collapsed, Relief Commissioner K.K. Sinha said. The state offered compensation of about $2,200 to victims' families.

"Many of them died in their sleep," said P.K. Upadhaya, a district magistrate in Jaunpur, where 18 of the deaths occurred. "Heavy rainfall hampered the rescue operation."

Another 17 people were swept away over the weekend by floodwaters in Orissa state, where more than 130,000 have been evacuated from low-lying areas near rivers that burst their banks, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister S.N. Patra said. Since the monsoons began in August more than 70 people have died in Orissa.

The state's chief minister widened the evacuation area this week, while the air force was ordered to send more aircraft to help.

Hundreds of thousands of people scrambled into trees or on top of buildings to escape the rising waters.

In Bihar state, soldiers rescued more than 200 people who were stranded when flood waters from the Sone River entered their village. At least 500,000 people have been affected by floods as torrential rains and overflowing rivers inundated central and southern Bihar, said Vyas Ji, a top official.

At least 12 districts in Bihar were flooded after authorities in neighboring Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states released water from overflowing dams. Bihar's government has ordered engineers to cancel holidays and guard the embankments from further erosion, said Water Resources Minister Vijendra Choudhary.

___

Associated Press writer Indrajit Singh in Patna contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Monsoon flooding kills 16 in eastern India (AP)

BHUBANESHWAR, India – Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 16 people in eastern India and left nearly 100,000 others homeless, an official said Monday.

Incessant rains have hit the coastal and western parts of Orissa state for 10 days and nearly 2,800 villages have been affected, said S.N. Patra, the minister in charge of disaster management.

The rain stopped in most areas by Sunday evening, but the region's main river, the Mahanadi, remained over the danger mark on Monday and about 800 villages were still cut off, Patra said.

He said the government has set up about 180 relief camps and army helicopters were dropping food and water packets for people stranded in remote villages.

The loss to crops and property is still being assessed, he said.

Patra said the deaths occurred over the last four days.

India's monsoon season, which runs from June through September, brings rains that are vital to agriculture but can also cause massive destruction.

Flooding, landslides and other rain-related events kill thousands of people each year.

View the original article here

Storm kills 10 in India, 33 fishing boats missing (AFP)

KOLKATA (AFP) – Ten people died and 33 fishing boats went missing on Friday during monsoon storms in eastern India which flattened hundreds of homes and flooded the city of Kolkata, officials said.

Police said the deaths occurred in rain-related accidents across West Bengal, where 33 fishing trawlers and about 500 crew were also reported missing by a local fishing association.

Weather department official Gokul Chandra Debnath said the state capital Kolkata, where the downpour overwhelmed the inadequate and poorly maintained drainage system, recorded 10 centimetres (four inches) of rain on Friday.

"The city collapsed because we were not prepared for such a calamity at the beginning of the monsoon," Kolkata mayor Sovan Chatterjee said, adding an emergency response centre had been set up to help those stranded.

Senior police official Surojit Kar Purakayastha said at least 10 people were killed in the storms and heavy rains across the state.

Among those killed were four members of a family who died when a landslide flattened their home in mountainous Kurseong region and four others who were swept away after their boat sank in Kolkata's Hoogly river, he said.

Local fishermen's welfare association president Bijon Maity told AFP by telephone that 33 trawlers in the Bay of Bengal had gone missing during the afternoon.

"Each trawler has at least 16 fishermen," he said, meaning at least 528 men were unaccounted for.

During storms in West Bengal, many captains find themselves unable to return to port and take refuge with their boats and crews along the coast.

"We have urged the (state) chief minister Mamata Banerjee to take necessary steps to trace the missing trawlers," Maity said.

India has forecast a "normal" monsoon this year that could boost food production and ease high inflation.

The strength of the annual June-September downpour is vital to hundreds of millions of farmers and to economic growth in Asia's third-largest economy which gets 80 percent of its annual rainfall during the monsoon season.

View the original article here