Toll from India’s Uttar Pradesh storms rises to 111

• Gales, lightning and rain batter state.
• More than 200 homes damaged.
• Aid ordered for affected families.

New Delhi: 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.

One video, widely shared by Indian media, appeared to show a man hurled high into the air in the state’s Bareilly district, as a building roof was torn off.

AFP was unable to immediately verify the video, but the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency spoke to a survivor in hospital who said he was the man seen in the video.

Nanhe Ansari, a labourer, said he was trying to secure a tin roof with a rope when an intense gust lifted the sheet metal, and he clung on.

“The tin sheet started shaking due to strong winds, so I asked them to bring a rope to tie it down,” he told PTI from his hospital bed.

“While some of us were holding it and one person was tying it, a very strong gust of wind came. My grip did not loosen, and I was lifted nearly 50 feet (15 metres) into the air along with the tin sheet and thrown about 80 feet away,” he added.

“The sheet fell first, and then I fell into a maize field filled with water. I thought I would not survive, but I did.”

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.