About 81 people have died in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as a result of incessant rains and landslides over the last few days. Moreover, more than 960 people have been rescued while over 10,000 have been shifted to safer places in the regions of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab battered by heavy rains and flash floods.
The weather office has further predicted isolated but heavy rainfall in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in the next few days.
Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab rain fury: Latest updates
1. The death toll in rain-battered Himachal Pradesh rose to 71 on Wednesday with more bodies being recovered. “At least 71 people have died in the past three days and 13 are still missing. A total of 57 bodies have been recovered since Sunday night,” Principal Secretary (Revenue) Onkar Chand Sharma said, reported news agency PTI.
2. Heavy rains have lashed the hill state since Sunday, triggering landslides in several districts including Shimla where three areas — Summer Hill, Fagli and Krishna Nagar — are badly hit by landslips. According to the state emergency operation centre, in total, 214 people have died in the rain-related incidents in the state since the onset of monsoon on June 24, while 38 are still missing.
3. “Rescue operations are going on in Summer Hill and Krishna Nagar areas…one body was recovered from Summer Hill site,” Shimla Deputy Commissioner Aditya Negi told PTI. He said so far 13 bodies have been recovered from Summer Hill, five from Fagli and two from Krishna Nagar. Some bodies are still feared buried in the debris of the Shiva temple at Summer Hill that collapsed on Monday.
4. Himachal Pradesh has already received 742 mm of rainfall in 54 days of monsoon this year against a season’s average of 730 mm it records between June 1 and September 30. The Army, Indian Air Force, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force are engaged in the evacuation of people from the flood-affected areas, CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, adding police and Home Guard personnel have also been roped in for the process.
5. So far, NDRF has rescued more than 960 victims and shifted 10,363 personnel to safer places in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab. In Punjab, many villages in Hoshiarpur, Rupnagar and Gurdaspur districts were inundated following the release of excess water from the Bhakra and Pong dams.
6. Torrential rain also ravaged Uttarakhand over the past few days, destroying buildings and causing landslides that breached the national highways to Badrinath, Kedarnath and Gangotri shrines.
7. Four bodies, including those of a couple and their son, were recovered from the debris at a resort in Uttarakhand’s Lakshman Jhula that was hit by a landslide following heavy rain on Monday. Two bodies were retrieved late on Tuesday and two others on Wednesday, the SSP Office in Pauri said. The death toll in rain-related incidents in Uttarakhand has risen to 10 with the recovery of these four bodies.
8. Traffic continued to remain disrupted with the Pauri-Kotdwar-Dugadda national highway blocked by landslide debris at Amsaur. A stretch of the Rishikesh-Badrinath national highway was washed away near Pipalkoti Bharenpani, the state’s disaster control room said. Efforts are underway to reopen the roads, it said.
9. Several teams of the National Disaster Response Force, Army and the BSF have been pressed into service for rescue operations in flood-hit areas of Punjab’s Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and Rupnagar districts. Large parts of these three districts have been inundated following the release of excess water from the Bhakra and the Pong dams. The Bhakra dam on the Sutlej river and the Pong dam on the Beas river — both in Himachal Pradesh — are brimming after heavy rain in their respective catchment areas.
10. The Gurdaspur district administration announced holidays in government and private schools in flood-hit villages till further orders while the authorities in Rupnagar declared holidays in schools and Anganwadi centres in the affected areas on August 17-18. The state government is keeping a close watch on the situation and relief and rescue operations are underway in the flood-hit areas, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said adding that the water levels in the Bhakra and the Pong dams are at 1,677 feet and 1,398 feet, respectively.
(With inputs from agencies)
