Manali, Jul 10: Torrential rains pounded several parts of north India on Sunday with 18 people killed in landslides and other rain-related incidents, while most rivers, including the Yamuna in Delhi, were in spate. In cities and towns across the region, many roads and residential areas were submerged in knee-deep water with the civic system unable to hold on in the face of record rains.

 

 

 

Frightening images of the chaos unleashed by the rains—vehicles floating like paper boats on inundated roads, muddy waters gushing into residential areas, temples and other structures submerged on the banks by the swollen rivers and land cave-ins—were shared online by people from Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Delhi, among other places.

 

 

 

Heavy downpour warnings have been issued for certain areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh, while in Delhi, which recorded its highest rainfall in a single day in July since 1982, authorities have cautioned over the rising water level of the Yamuna. While Delhi received 153 mm of rain in 24 hours ending 8:30 on Sunday, Chandigarh and Ambala in Haryana reported record rainfall of 322.2 mm and 224.1 mm, respectively, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). Solan in Himachal Pradesh received 135 mm of rain on Sunday, breaking a 50-year-old record of 105 mm of rain in a day in 1971, while Una received the highest rainfall after 1993, Shimla Meteorological Office Director Surender Paul said. With normal life paralyzed, schools in Delhi and its adjoining NCR cities of Gurugram and Noida will be closed on Monday, according to officials. In Ghaziabad, schools will remain closed for two more days due to rains and thereafter, till July 17 due to ‘kanwar yatra’. Railway services have also been hit. The Northern Railways said it has cancelled around 17 trains and diverted around 12 others, while traffic has been suspended at four locations due to waterlogging. In three separate incidents of landslides in Himachal Pradesh, where a red alert of extremely heavy rains has been issued for 10 districts, five people were killed. Three members of a family were killed in a house collapse following a landslide in Shimla district’s Kotgarh area, while one death each was reported from Kullu and Chamba districts. In Rajhana village, on the outskirts of Shimla city, a girl was buried as a huge amount of debris swept by rainwater fell on her house. Officials said an elderly woman was reportedly trapped under debris and rescue operations are underway. Fourteen major landslides and 13 flash floods have been reported in the past 36 hours while over 700 roads have been closed, according to the Himachal Pradesh emergency operation centre. The Himachal Pradesh government has closed all schools and colleges affiliated with the state for two days—Monday and Tuesday. In neighboring Uttarakhand, three pilgrims drowned in the Ganga after their jeep fell into the river amid a landslide near Gular on the Rishikesh-Badrinath National Highway. State Disaster Response Force and police officials said there were 11 people in the jeep. Five people have been rescued, while a search is on for three others, they said and added that three bodies have been recovered by rescue personnel.

 

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In the Kashipur area of the state, two houses collapsed killing a couple and injuring their granddaughter. Two people were killed in Jammu and Kashmir after a landslide hit a passenger bus in Doda district, while in Ladakh’s Kargil district, a man was killed after his vehicle got crushed under a boulder that rolled down a hillock along the along Leh-Srinagar national highway. Bodies of two soldiers, who were swept away by flash floods while crossing the Dogra Nallah on Saturday, were recovered in the Poonch district of the Union Territory. However, there was some relief in Srinagar from the heavy downpour and the yatra to the Himalayan cave shrine of Amarnath resumed on Sunday from the Panjtarni and the Sheshnag base camps after remaining suspended for three days. There were also reports of snowfall from high-altitude areas of Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh, where a red alert has been issued for heavy rains.