{"id":428021,"date":"2026-05-14T22:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428021\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T22:54:08","slug":"dust-storms-and-lightning-kill-at-least-96-people-in-northern-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/428021\/","title":{"rendered":"Dust storms and lightning kill at least 96 people in northern India"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUCKNOW, India \u2014 Dust storms, heavy rain, and lightning damaged homes and other structures and killed at least 96 people<\/a> in northern India, officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n

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The storms also injured more than 50 people<\/a> as they swept across several districts late Wednesday in Uttar Pradesh, India\u2019s most populous state.<\/p>\n

Officials said some deaths were caused by falling trees, collapsing structures and lightning. Police and disaster response teams used chainsaws and cranes<\/a> to clear fallen trees from roads and railway tracks in several districts.<\/p>\n

Storms are common in northern India during the hot season from March to June, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.<\/p>\n

Narendra N. Srivastava, an administrative official, said emergency teams were deployed across the affected areas and that homes, crops and power infrastructure were widely damaged, particularly in rural districts.<\/p>\n

In Prayagraj district, residents described panic as strong winds tore through neighborhoods<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe storm came suddenly and the sky turned completely dark within minutes,\u201d Ram Kishore said. \u201cTin roofs were flying<\/a> and people ran indoors. We could hear trees falling throughout the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

In neighboring Bhadohi district, Savitri Devi said her family narrowly escaped after strong winds damaged their mud house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rushed outside when the walls started shaking because of the wind. Our roof collapsed moments later. We spent the night at a relative\u2019s house,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Uttar Pradesh\u2019s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered officials to complete relief operations<\/a> within 24 hours and directed authorities to provide compensation and emergency aid to affected families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUCKNOW, India \u2014 Dust storms, heavy rain, and lightning damaged homes and other structures and killed at least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-428021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}