Today's Edition
NEW DELHI (AFP)
Powerful storms that swept across India's northern Uttar Pradesh state this week killed at least 111 people, government officials said, raising an earlier death toll as more districts reported casualties.
Gales, lightning, and torrential rain battered the state on Wednesday, ripping tin roofs from buildings and uprooting trees that blocked roads, footage broadcast on television showed.
Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 240 million people, is frequently hit by storms during the summer months ahead of the monsoon rains, with lightning strikes a regular cause of death.
The Relief Commissioner's office, the state aid agency, had initially said that on May 13, 89 people had been killed and 72 injured, with more than 200 homes damaged.
It later updated the toll to 111 dead as more reports came in, according to published remarks in The Hindu newspaper on Friday.
"Reports of 111 deaths were received," the statement read, adding that 72 people were injured.
The Times of India reported the toll at 117, but AFP was not able to immediately confirm the figure.
India's weather office has in recent years warned of an increase in extreme weather events, including intense thunderstorms and lightning, which experts link to rising temperatures and changing climate patterns.
The statement said officials have been instructed to distribute financial aid to the affected families.
The violent weather that tore across Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday was part of widespread pre-monsoon thunderstorm activity triggered by unstable atmospheric conditions.
