Barely 30 years ago, playful Bottlenose Dolphins were among the plethora of sea creatures that used to happily cavort and thrive in the waters off the Vizag coast.

The deep depression over Bay of Bengal, which moved westwards on Sunday, was lying about 500 km south-south-east of Paradip.

A deep depression hovering over the Bay of Bengal may intensify into a cyclonic storm by Tuesday morning and is likely to cross the north Tamil Nadu coast and adjoining south Andhra Pradesh by October 31 midnight, the Met office said.

The deep depression lay over the southwest Bay of Bengal, about 550 km south-southeast of Chennai and 200 km east-northeast of Trincomalee. If it intensifies into a cyclonic storm, it would be the season’s first cyclone to strike the State.

A deepwater well in a Krishna Godavari basin block operated by state-run Oil and Natural Gas
Corp (ONGC) has been leaking gas for two months and there are now fears of environment damage due to the uncontrolled flow.

The well G-1-9 in Bay of Bengal has been leaking gas since August-end and all efforts by ONGC to contain the flow have so far been futile. "This is a very old, drilled some eight or 10 years back. It wasn't producing till now and we had plans to put in on production sometime next year along with other gas finds in the area," a company official said.

BALASORE: A day after the Indian Army struck gold with Prithvi-II, the Navy on Friday achieved another milestone in its on-going strategic programme with the successful flight testing of nuke-capab

Three people died and one remained untraced on Tuesday as rains wreaked havoc across the state.

Thousands of hectares of paddy were submerged and many low-lying areas in the cities were inundated. Met office sources said that a low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal along Coastal Andhra and Telangana for the past three days had led to the rains. They added that isolated heavy rain fall would occur over Co-astal AP and Telangana over the next 48 hours.

At least five private companies under scanner

The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a preliminary enquiry to probe alleged irregularities in issuance of licences to at least five private companies for exploration of mineral wealth in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during 2010-11. The prime allegation is that licences for 28 of the 62 offshore mines were granted to companies owned by the son and brother of an Indian Revenue Officer in conspiracy with unknown officials of the Indian Bureau of Mines and the Union Ministry of Mines.