Unrelenting rain and landslides have killed 66 people in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as operations to rescue the injured and remove bodies from the rubble of homes in some places continued.
Most of the deaths have been in Himachal Pradesh, where 60 people have died since heavy rains began on August 13, said Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
The weather bureau has predicted heavy but isolated rains in Himachal Pradesh for the next two days and in Uttarakhand for the next four.
3 BODY HAS BEEN REMOVED IN HIMACHAL, PHONE NUMBER AT 60
On Tuesday, rescuers pulled three bodies from the rubble of landslides. A body has been removed from the ruins of a collapsed Shiva temple in Shimla while two people were killed in a new landslide in the town. At least eight houses, including six makeshift homes, have collapsed and a slaughterhouse is buried in the rubble following a landslide in Krishnanagar locality in Shimla.
A total of 19 bodies have been recovered since Monday, 12 from the Shiva shrine complex in Summer Hill, five from Fagli, and two from Krishnanagar, he said, adding that more than 10 people were still feared trapped. at the Shiva temple, which collapsed on 10/10. Monday.
All schools and colleges in the state will remain closed on Wednesday due to inclement weather, an order issued by the Department of Education said.
Deputy Commissioner Shimla Aditya Negi told the PTI news agency that the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and military, along with police and SDRF, resumed rescue operations at Summer Hill at around 6 a.m.
Relief operations were suspended on Monday night following heavy rains. The Weather Bureau issued an orange warning on Tuesday, August 15, while a yellow alert was in place for the next four days through August 19.
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh University has suspended teaching activities until August 19 due to heavy rain. The university library will also be closed until August 20.
However, a notice said that teaching and non-teaching staff will arrive at the university as usual.
Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu chaired a meeting on Tuesday to review the prevailing situation in the state and stressed that the Himachal administration is fully committed to accelerating recovery efforts on a priority basis. He also ordered officials to quickly restore water and electricity supply systems that have been affected by heavy rains in recent days, according to an official statement.
In a tweet on Wednesday morning, the premier said more than 800 people had been evacuated from their villages in the low-lying areas of Kangra as water levels in Pong Dam rose.
"More than 800 people have been evacuated from the lower Kangra areas near the Pong dam, due to inaccessibility to their villages due to the high water level in the dam reservoir. The evacuation is still ongoing as there are more and more people are evacuated,” he added. wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
