About 25 people are feared dead, including six Army personnel, after a massive landslide hit Malpa village on the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra route and washed away an Army camp in nearby Ghatiyabagad area of Uttarakhand. Five bodies have been recovered so far and the Army has launched massive search operations amid a cloud burst even though the area remains cut-off.
Pithoragarh district magistrate Ravishankar said, “Till late evening, rescue teams had recovered four bodies from Malpa village, while the body of a woman was fished out from Mangti nullah. Eight persons including six Armymen are missing in Ghatiyabagad while four personnel were rescued by our teams.” The camp, near Tawaghat, on the Mansarovar Yatra route, held around 100 personnel when it was swamped under the waters. District authorities said there were 15-20 people missing in Malpa alone, which was the side of one of the worst landslides in India's history that killed 200 people in 1998.
Ravishankar said, “It is not clear yet how many people were present at the landslide-hit area in Malpa. At least four shops have been totally buried under the debris. While we have official confirmation of four persons missing from the village, the number could be higher.” Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and cabinet minister Prakash Pant reached the site to take stock of the situation, but were unable to carry out an aerial survey of the disaster-affected areas due to bad weather.
Meanwhile, 600 villages in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, were flooded after 188,000 cusecs of water was released from Nepal on Sunday. Fifty people were buried alive in Himachal, as tonnes of slush and boulders came down on a 250 metre stretch of the Mandi-Pathankot national highway. Officials said 46 bodies have been recovered till now, and five injured are admitted in the zonal hospital in Mandi.
The landslide swept away two Himachal Roadways Transport Corporation (HRTC) buses with around 55 passengers on board, some private vehicles and several houses.
Flood situation in Assam, Bihar grim
The flood situation in Assam and Bihar remained grim with more deaths reported and millions remaining affected while it improved slightly in West Bengal. Ten deaths were reported in Assam, taking the toll in the second wave of floods in the state to 28, officials said. The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries are flowing over the danger level snapping surface communications across Assam, even as flood waters submerged railway tracks at many places in Katihar and Alipurduar divisions of Northeast Frontier Railway, disrupting rail traffic in the region. The floods have affected 25 of Assam's 32 districts, displacing 3300,000 people.
Barring a few areas, there was no heavy rain in West Bengal during Tuesday. Water levels of all major rivers in north Bengal which were flowing above danger marks came down to some extent.
The overall situation in worst-hit Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts improved, authorities said.
The death toll rose to 56 in Bihar, where 6981,000 people have been hit by inundation in 13 districts. The flood situation was grim in north Bihar, where rivers are flowing above the danger level and have caused immense loss and damage.
