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A Nepali couple was buried alive in a landslide here, while an elderly couple and their grandson are feared dead after their mists were swept away in a flash flood here Saturday, officials said.
As heavy rains fall on Kalala village in Kotkhai here, a couple – Bhim Bahadur and his wife Sheela – are killed when their temporary home collapses due to a landslide. Officials added that the duo hail from Nepal and work as workers in Kalala. In another incident on Saturday morning, an elderly couple and their grandson are feared dead after a dhaba in Padiyara village in Rohru district was swept away in a flash flood into the Laila river, officials said, adding that rescue work is underway to track down the trio.
They added that in the aftermath of the floods, reports of damage to many homes and vehicles in Rohru began pouring in.
Meanwhile, the police said that the wreckage of the Punjab Road bus was found in the middle of the Beas River in Manali on Saturday.
Punjab road officials who have identified the bus said it started its journey from sector 34 in Chandigarh on July 9 and was swept away in floods on July 10 near Manali.
It has not yet been confirmed whether there were passengers on the bus during the accident, the police said, adding that the bodies of the bus driver and the conductor were recovered earlier.
On the other hand, about 30 km from Rohru, cracks one meter deep have appeared along Bazaar Road in Khaltu Nula in Kotkai district here, splitting the market area in two, Shimla Deputy Commissioner Aditya Negi told PTI on Saturday.
As the cracks deepened due to the incessant rains since Friday evening, 16 members of three families residing in the area were moved to a safer place, Negi said, adding that immediate relief of Rs 2,500 was given to ten families.
After rains in Kotkhai, rubble entered the hospital campus in Kotkhai, a retaining wall collapsed at the district’s main bus stand, a landslide occurred in front of the police station and a power line snapped, ADGP Satwant Atwal said in a tweet.
Shopkeepers in the Khaltou Nola market shifted their goods to temporary shelters after cracks developed and residents of the area were relocated as a precaution.
With the start of the apple season, the apple growers in the villages around the Khaltu Nula market are also much worried as the market landslide might cut them off from the Guma-Chaila-Thoeg road which is used to transport farm produce and other commodities to Shimla and other prominent markets in the state.
Officials said that several roads were reported to be closed in Sirmore district after heavy rains.
With moderate to very heavy rains falling over parts of Himachal Pradesh since Friday, Renuka/Dadahu was the wettest with 195mm of rain, followed by 137mm in Nahan, 106 in Solan 103mm in Pashad, 90mm in both Chopal and Sundernagar, 88mm each, weather data showed for the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 am.
The local MeT office issued an orange warning for heavy to very heavy rain for isolated locations on July 22 and a yellow warning for heavy rain from July 23-26.
It also indicated the risk of flash floods in Chamba, Kangra, Sirmore, Kullu, Mandi and Kinnaur districts in the next 24 hours.
Since the onset of the monsoon in the hill state on June 24, 154 people have so far lost their lives in rain-related incidents such as landslides, flash floods and cloud floods, along with road accidents, according to Himachal Pradesh Emergency Response Centre. The state has suffered a loss of Rs 5,077 crore so far.
About 696 roads are closed to vehicular traffic in the state. A statement issued here said a 426 percent increase in rainfall was recorded in the state from July 7 to 14, and 5,480 landslide incidents, 14 cloudbursts and 83 flash floods were reported since June 24.
(This story was not edited by the News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
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