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New Delhi: Powerful hailstorms, accompanied by lightning and heavy rain, swept across several districts of Uttar Pradesh this week, killing at least 111 people, government officials said.

Thunderstorms and winds of up to 130 km/hr uprooted trees, electric poles and tin roofs, causing significant damage across 26 districts, injuring 72 people, killing 179 livestock and wrecking 227 houses, State Relief Commissioner Hrishikesh Bhaskar Yashod’s office said on Thursday (May 14).

The deaths were reported after extreme weather conditions on Wednesday, May 13. Officials said the situation is actively being monitored.

The human cost of the storms

At least four people each are reported to have died in the Barabanki, Bahraich, Kanpur, Basti, Sambhal, Hardoi and Unnao districts of the state, while the highest number of deaths were recorded in Prayagraj (21), Mirzapur (19), Sant Ravidas Nagar (16) and Fatehpur (11), as per information released by the relief commissioner’s office.

One video, widely circulated around social media, appeared to show a man hurled several feet high into the air as a building’s roof was torn off in Bareilly. The Press Trust of India (PTI) spoke to the survivor in hospital, who said he was trying to secure a tin roof with rope when strong wind lifted the sheet nearly 50 feet into the air.

In Kanpur Dehat, a 19-year-old woman died after being struck by lightning while looking for shelter under a tree during........

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