Cyclone Tauktae: Death toll climbs to 46 in Gujarat, 18 injured

The cyclone Tauktae claimed as many as 46 lives across a dozen affected districts and left 18 injured with Amreli district, where the cyclone made landfall reporting the highest (15) number of casualties. Most of the fatal incidents were reported due to wall collapse, house collapse, electrocution, and roof collapse.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook an aerial survey of the worst affected districts including Gir-Somnath, Amreli, Bhavnagar, and union territory Diu. He later announced Rs 1,000 crore assistance to Gujarat for relief work and also extended ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh to the next kin of those who were killed and Rs 50,000 to seriously injured in the cyclone. The ex-gratia has also been extended to states such as Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

See here | Cyclone Tauktae: PM Modi conducts aerial survey of affected areas in Gujarat, Diu

On Wednesday evening, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani announced Rs 4 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased and Rs 1 lakh to those seriously injured. In all, the government's release stated, the families of the deceased will receive Rs 6 lakh as compensation.

"Our preliminary report has found that 46 people lost their lives and 18 were injured till Wednesday evening in 12 districts," said a class-II officer with Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority, which is compiling the data, requesting not to be quoted. The state government has officially not announced the death toll yet, while the chief minister on Tuesday evening had said that 13 persons lost their lives in cyclone-related incidents.

When contacted, additional chief secretary, revenue and home, Pankaj Kumar refused to share figure of the total casualties and said to contact the disaster control room.

Out of 12 districts, Amreli is the worst affected with 15 deaths due to the cyclone that crossed the Saurashtra coast on Monday night as an extremely severe cyclonic storm and completed its landfall on Tuesday. The path the cyclone followed - Gir-Somnath to Bhavnagar in Saurashtra - has left massive destruction to properties and standing summer crops including horticulture as well as livestock. The cyclone with high-velocity winds has flattened mango crops, banana and coconut plantations. It damaged over 16,500 houses, 70,000 electric poles, and over 40,000 trees.

Officials said that eight people each were killed in Gir-Somnath and Bhavnagar districts, while five were killed in the Ahmedabad district. Deaths were also reported in Rajkot, Anand, Vadodara, Surat, Valsad, Navsari, and Panchmahal districts.