At least 16 people died in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur and Dholpur districts after heavy rain lashed the areas on Wednesday night. Five children were among those who died in Dholpur, The Times of India reported.
The administration said that the toll may go up. “Most of these deaths happened due to collapse of houses in the storm,” an officer of the Dholpur administration told the daily. “At most of the places victims were sleeping.”
The heavy rainfall snapped power lines in many areas, leading to outages or fire due to short circuit. Several main streets were waterlogged and traffic and railway lines were affected. The Dholpur-Bharatpur rail route was reportedly closed for around two hours.
Heavy rain also lashed several other parts of North and North West India such as Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana, NDTV reported.
Hailstorm in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh damaged crops, leading to protests by farmers on Thursday morning.
In Uttar Pradesh’s Agra, a thunderstorm brought a minaret at the entry gate of the Taj Mahal complex crashing down on Wednesday night. At least four people in Mathura and one person in Bijnor were killed in the storm, which also damaged several power poles and uprooted trees.
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