Lucknow, May 14 (IANS): Dust storm, hail and lightning have claimed as many as 23 lives in the last 12 hours in Uttar Pradesh, an official said on Monday.

The storm hit Etawah, Banda, Auriyya, Meerut, Kanpur rural, Kannauj, Farukkhabad and Orai districts.

Late on Sunday gusty winds, followed by dust storm had brought life to a standstill in many parts of the state. Many houses were razed to the ground, hoardings and trees uprooted and power outages reported from various cities and towns.

The relief commissioner's office, although, has confirmed only 18 deaths besides two dozen injuries in Sunday's dust storm.

District officials have been asked by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to ensure prompt relief, a government spokesman said.

Due to the uprooting of trees, vehicular traffic on the busy G.T. road near Orai was disrupted for more than four hours.

A woman standing under a tree in Kannauj was killed as it fell on her while two persons have been reported dead from Barabanki.

Three deaths, including a child have been reported from Bulandshahr due to a wall collapse.

Five persons have been reported dead in Kasganj and one in the temple town of Vrindavan. Two persons died in Saharanpur after being struck with lightning.

One person died in Muzaffarnagar as he was hit by a tree branch when he was driving a bike.

One person was killed in Ghaziabad's Lalkuan area after a tree fell on a car and a six-year-old died in Hapur after falling in a tube well tank due to the squall.

A passerby was hit by a hoarding brought down by winds near the Stellar Jeevan Society in Noida and died while one woman was killed in Aligarh.

While one died in Sambhal, two persons were killed in Banjariya village when two minarets of a mosque were ripped off by high velocity winds and they fell on a house. One person was killed in Budayun.