Heavy rain and cloudbursts wreaked havoc in Himachal Pradesh for the second time since July, resulting in multiple landslides that claimed at least 50 lives across the hill state, with Mandi and Shimla districts being the hardest hit on Monday. About 13 people were missing and the death count is likely to rise as many are feared buried under rubble.
The situation was grim in neighbouring Uttarakhand too, as a 12-hour spell of torrential rain caused three deaths and left five people missing while 114 workers were rescued by SDRF from a flooded Rishikesh-Karanprayag railway tunnel near Shivpuri. The fatalities have pushed the state’s rain-related death toll this monsoon to 63, with over 20 people still unaccounted for. The extreme rain spells came during a “break” in the monsoon over the country, when the monsoon trough runs close to the western Himalayas, making the hill states vulnerable to heavy showers.
Rising water levels in Himachal rivers have prompted an alert in the downstream regions of Punjab. Rain knocked out power, swept away buses, trucks and cars, while causing substantial damage to houses and bridges in Himachal Pradesh. The Kalka-Shimla rail route, designated as a World Heritage site, has been severely damaged by a landslide, causing the track to hang in the air.
Calamity struck the state over the weekend, with the historic Shiv Bawdi temple in Shimla’s Summer Hill area collapsing under the force of a landslide, burying over two dozen people. Eight bodies had been recovered till Monday night as rescue operations were hindered by frequent landslides.
In Mandi district, five cloudbursts and flash floods led to 19 fatalities. The Balh valley remained inundated due to floods in the Suketi river. Mandi town faced its own challenges, with the Panchvaktra temple submerged in rising waters after the Pandoh dam’s flood gates were opened. The Vishwakarma temple was also damaged by a landslide. Stranded devotees near Mandi were rescued by police.
In Shimla, landslides claimed 14 lives (including eight dead at Shiv Bawdi temple collapse), while flash floods in Solan resulted in 10 fatalities. Rain-related events led to two deaths in Sirmaur district. In Jadon village of Solan, acloudburst led to the tragic loss of seven lives within a single family.
The tragedy extended to other districts as well, with fatalities reported in Hamirpur, Kangra, Chamba, and Bilaspur. The monsoon’s intensity was so extreme that Kangra Aero in Kangra district and Sujanpur Tira of Hamirpur recorded 273mm and 254mm of rainfall over the past 24 hours. In Kangra, a man was killed and another injured when a boulder fell on a newspaper delivery vehicle at Ranital.
Across the state, 752 roads have been closed due to landslides and flooding. As a precaution, all schools and colleges remained closed.
The Uttarakhand disaster management department said most of the rivers were overflowing, with the Ganga gushing above the danger mark in Tehri, Haridwar and Rishikesh.