-The Tribune Along with better forecasts, we need better monitoring and reporting of actual rainfall, water levels in rivers and incidents of landslides. More timely and location-specific forecasts that would enable the disaster management authorities to take the necessary advance actions would help. Such emergency action plans would follow only if there is a functional, accountable and participatory disaster management mechanism in place. This month’s flood disasters in two states distant from...

-The Hindu Business Line The 2016 report had flagged the disastrous impact of unchecked illegal constructions; but it was never tabled in the Assembly Early warnings of a 2016 draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) Kerala office about the disastrous implications of the environmental degradation due to unchecked and illegal construction activities in the State seem to have been buried, with the report inexplicably not getting tabled in the...

-PTI/ TheNewsMinute.com Of the 694 districts in the country, 45% of them have recorded rainfall in large excess. India received 41% more rainfall than normal from October 1-21 with Uttarakhand alone recording more than five times its normal precipitation, IMD data showed on Thursday. Providing a numerical perspective to the unusually heavy rains ravaging several parts of the country, particularly the hill state of Uttarakhand in the north and coastal Kerala in...

-PTI/ The New Indian Express Three people were killed and hundreds were marooned as torrential rains lashed Bareilly and Pilibhit districts over two days, officials said. LUCKNOW: BJP MP Varun Gandhi, whose Pilibhit constituency has been hit by heavy rains, on Thursday attacked the Uttar Pradesh government, saying if the common man is left to fend for himself, what does governance mean. Three people were killed and hundreds were marooned as torrential rains...

-The Hindu Pampa, Manimala, Achencoil still above danger level Amid havoc caused by torrential rains over the past week leading to floods and landslips, the Kerala Government has constituted an expert committee to regulate the release of water from 81 dams across swollen rivers. The hydroelectric, irrigation and drinking water dams in the State are several decades old and designed in a pre-climate-change era. Climatologists, structural engineers, and hydrologists are on the committee...