Storms whipped across the giant Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday evening, tearing away trees, walls and makeshift roofs and killing at least 111 people.
Seventy-two other people were injured and at least 227 homes were damaged or destroyed, said Shashi Kumar Tripathi, a deputy collector in the office of the state’s relief commissioner in the city of Lucknow. The destruction was spread across a third of the state, which is home to 243 million people.
Mr. Tripathi said most of the deaths were caused by collapsing structures and windblown debris.
The month of May tends to be among the hottest and driest in the northern part of India, but sudden, violent tempests are not uncommon. India’s meteorological department had issued its highest-level warning for thunderstorms on Tuesday.
Its forecast warned of near-gale-force winds, reaching up to 37 miles per hour, across western Uttar Pradesh. The worst of the storm struck after 4 p.m. on Wednesday and continued for hours, hitting the eastern part of the state hardest. By Thursday, Mr. Tripathi said, officials had clocked hurricane-force wind speeds of 80 miles per hour, among the highest ever recorded in the state.
“Our top priority is to rescue the people still trapped under damaged houses, and then to clear roads blocked by felled trees and collapsed structures,” Uttar Pradesh’s relief commissioner, Hrishikesh Bhaskar Yashod, told reporters. “Finally, to restore essential services like drinking water and electrical supply.”
The state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, who also leads a Hindu sect, is India’s most prominent leader after Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On social media, he promised, “All possible help will be provided within 24 hours to affected families who lost people, properties and animals to the untimely rains, thunderstorm and lightning.”
Forecasters expect India’s monsoon season to be relatively weak this year, but they said it could begin early. The primary monsoon typically runs from June to September, but the government’s weather service has indicated that the southwest monsoon could advance into parts of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea as early as this weekend.
Hari Kumar covers India, based out of New Delhi. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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