Uttarakhand cloudburst:Death toll mounts to six

May 29, 2016

Dehradun, May 29: Five more people were killed over the last 24 hours in Uttarakhand, as heavy rains triggered by a series of cloudbursts hit Tehri and Uttarkashi districts. Uttarkashi's Chinyalisaur area reported four fresh deaths.

The toll in cloudburst now stands at six.

Four persons, including three women, were swept in incidents of mudslide when a series of cloudbursts hit several villages in Chinyalisaur at 5 pm and 10 pm on Saturday, SDM Vijay Nath Shukla, who is on a visit to affected areas, told PTI today.

The deceased women have been identified as Shartna Devi (45), Sunaina (19) and Godambari Devi (55) who hailed from Dargarh, Junga and Murogi localities, respectively. Sunaina's body has been recovered and a search is on for the rest, he said.

Munshi Lal (40) was also swept away by a flood triggered by a cloudburst in Suri village, he said, adding 13 cattle were also buried alive under the debris in the area.

The body of 14-year-old Bharti, a resident of Kireth village, who was swept away by waters following the cloudburst on Saturday was recovered today from Kothiyaada village in Tehri district, Ghansali SDM Vinod Kumar said.

A 15-year-old boy was yesterday killed as cloudbursts in Ghansali area damaged hundreds of houses in over half a dozen villages in Balganga Valley.

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IndiGo CEO says less than 1,000 cancellations on Dec 6; normalcy by Dec 15

News Network

December 5,2025

New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said.

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

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