India Dust Storms: Over 100 killed, one more hit forecast

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02:22

A series of dust storms have killed dozens of people across India - and injured hundreds. The state of Uttar Pradesh has been the hardest hit - where more than 70 have died - most in the city of Agra. Neha Poonia traveled to the disaster zone and filed this report.

I'm standing on top of what used to be the first floor of a two-storey house in the Kukawar village near Agra in Uttar Pradesh. On Wednesday evening, when the storm first struck at about 8pm local time, the family of ten were all lying down on the first floor after dinner.

This is where- a wall that used to be here, came crashing down. Such was the force of the impact that the entire floor collapsed, the family was buried under this debris. They have lost four young children- youngest being 1 year old.

You can see here remnants of their old life- a milk bottle under the debris, the television set and a cupboard that is still intact.

We've spoken to the head of the village- he says that the villagers had no inkling that a dust storm of this severity was going to strike and that they had no time to prepare at all, everything happened in a matter of a few minutes.

DURGA SINGH VILLAGE CHIEF "No one expected anything. The storm started suddenly. We weren't warned by officials either. The weather department didn't issue any alerts. We didn't even see any warnings in the local newspapers."

Sadly for the residents of this village, who are still coming to terms with the loss to life- there is no end in sight. Weather agencies have predicted another dust storm over the next two days.

Authorities in that regard have warned villagers to stay away from temporary structures like this one, to stay away from walls that could possibly collapse if there is heavy rainfall.

Villagers are angry though- they say that if they have any recourse, they would not have stayed in these homes and would have instead built permanent homes. They say when a dust storm strikes, where else will we seek refuge?