Rains bring relief to scorched Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Weather turned pleasant across Odisha today following prolonged rainfall triggered by a low pressure on the Bay of Bengal after a long spell of gruelling heat in the state, where sunstroke has claimed 17 lives this summer.

The mercury remained below the 40 degrees Celsius mark across the state during the day.

As the state had virtually turned into a boiling pot during the peak of summer a few days ago, the 40 degree mark had been breached nearly everyday at many places.

Bhubaneswar, which had recorded 34 degrees Celsius yesterday, saw the mercury fall further to 32.1 deg C today. The temperature in Cuttack also dropped to 32.5 deg C from yesterday's 33 deg C, according to the Met department here.

Heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to pound several areas of Odisha in the next 24 hours under the impact of the low pressure over Bay of Bengal, which has now taken the shape of a well marked low pressure, the Met office said.

Of the 17 heat related deaths reported in the state so far this summer - four each were in Sambalpur and Angul, three each in Bargarh and Sundargarh districts and one each in Balangir, Bhadrak and Dhenkanal, according to the office of the Special Relief Commissioner (SRC).