- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
AT least 41 people lost their lives while more than a dozen went missing after landslides and flash floods caused by days of heavy rain hit parts of northern India, official sources said on Tuesday (19).
In the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand which is prone to natural disasters, 35 people were killed in fresh landslides that took place on Tuesday. On Monday (18), six had died in similar tragedies.
At least 30 lives were lost in seven separate incidents in the Nainital area of the state on Tuesday after a series of landslides were caused by cloudbursts that cause massive rainfall in a localised region.
“So far 30 people have been confirmed dead, while many people are still missing,” AFP quoted Nainital senior civil officer Ashok Kumar Joshi as saying.
He said several remote areas in the hilly areas saw widespread damage caused by intense rain. Five of a family died when their house was buried by a landslide, another local civil officer told the news outlet.
In the northern Almora district, another landslide killed five after huge rocks and a wall of mud fell on their house. Six more were killed in two remote districts of the state on Monday.
The Indian Meteorological Department predicted “heavy” to “very heavy” rain in the region over the next two days, adding to the concerns of both common people and the authorities. The weather officials also said that several areas in the state were lashed by more than 400 millimetres of rainfall on Monday, triggering landslides and floods.
Schools were asked to be shut while religious and tourist activities were stopped.
The Nainital lake, a top tourist attraction, was found to be overflowing while the Ganga river burst its banks in Rishikesh. More than 100 tourists were left stranded in Ramgarh area of the state after an overflowing Kosi river inundated several areas.
Landslides are a regular feature in India’s Himalayan zone and experts blame increasingly erratic rainfall, melting glaciers and reckless construction work and deforestation as reasons for the mayhem.
In February this year, a deadly flash flood hit a remote valley in Uttarakhand, killing nearly 200 people. In 2013, the state witnessed a massive tragedy when nearly 6,000 people perished in floods and landslides.
