Strong wind, hailstorm and rain hit several municipalities of eastern Georgian region of Kakheti late on Monday.

Roofs of more than hundred houses have been damaged in Gurjaani, Sagarejo and Lagodekhi municipalities and wind also ripped off roofs from about ten residential buildings in Gurjaani, according to the local officials. Croplands have also been destroyed by hailstorm.

Strong wind damaged power lines leaving about 37,000 households without electricity.

The Georgian MoD has sent army engineer battalion to the region to help in clean up works.

Households affected by heavy rains, strong wind and hail will be divided into three categories depending on level of damage inflicted and receive financial compensations ranging from GEL 300 to GEL 1,500, PM Vano Merabishvili said on July 20.

Heavy rains, strong wind and hail hit several provincial districts in Georgia overnight on Thursday, damaging buildings and farmlands.

Telavi in eastern region of Kakheti was heavily hit with strong wind ripping roofs off buildings and strong hail destroying farmlands. Heavy rain flooded basements of the houses and washed away domestic animals.

Governor of Kakheti region, Giorgi Gviniashvili, said that heavy rain, strong wind and hail caused serious damage to almost all the districts of Kakheti region, but Telavi was most severely hit.

No progress has been reported by negotiators after twentieth round of Geneva discussions on June 8 with participants agreeing to hold next round of talks, launched following the August 2008 war, after four months.

Geneva talks are held in the format of two working groups with the first one discussing security-related issues and the second one – humanitarian issues. Talks, co-chaired by EU, UN and OSCE representatives, involve negotiators, or as they are formally called “participants”, from Georgia, Russia and the United States, as well as from Sokhumi and Tskhinvali.

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The authorities have pledged on May 13 to provide shelter to those left homeless as a result of last nights’ flooding in Tbilisi, which killed five people.

A clean-up operation was underway on Sunday with works expected to continue for next several days in the most hit area, which is located in the capital city’s Ortachala district.

Over dozen of villages were hit by flooding after heavy rain pushed rivers over their banks in Georgia's eastern region of Kakheti on Sunday.

First floors of houses in some of the villages in Lagodekhi, Sagarejo and Gurjaani districts were swamped and local village roads, farmlands and domestic animals washed away. In the town of Lagodekhi itself residents of two apartment buildings were evacuated because of concerns that swamped basements could destroy the buildings.

Georgian Public Defender called on the authorities not to evict internally displaced persons from two collective centers in Tbilisi unless agreement on adequate alternative housing or financial compensation is reached with them as envisaged by the law.

Twenty servicemen from the U.S. state of Georgia’s Army National Guard are holding joint training exercises with the Georgian personnel in effective response to natural disasters.

The combined bilateral, humanitarian assistance and response exercises, Shared Horizons 2011, are held at the Georgian National Guard Training Center in Tbilisi on June 20-24.

“The recent weather-related disasters in Georgia demonstrate the importance of such preparedness,” the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi said.

Georgia has provided USD 1 million via the Red Cross to the relief efforts for earthquake and tsunami-hit Japan, according to the Georgian Foreign Ministry.

Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister, Davit Jalagania, met on March 25 with Japanese ambassador to Georgia, Masayoshi Kamohara, to discuss the issue.