In Shimla temple that collapsed, 7 of family were carrying out a havan
Rescue teams of the SDRF and the Army, which started work within hours of the disaster, have found 12 bodies so far.
4 min read
Pawan Sharma, his wife Santosh with their granddaughter. Silence has descended on the three-storeyed house of the Sharmas in Shimla’s upscale Summer Hill locality — seven members of the family, including three children, were inside the Shiv Bawadi temple, which was washed away in Monday’s cloudburst that killed at least 12 people.
Pawan Sharma, 60, who owns Aman Electrics in the Summer Hill market, his wife Santosh Sharma, 57, son Aman Sharma, 32, daughter-in-law, Archna Sharma, 27, and three granddaughters aged between 12 and 1.5 years were at the temple for a havan when it collapsed.
While bodies of four of the family members have been found, those of Pawan Sharma, Archna Sharma and a 5-year-old are still missing with rescuers of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) saying chances of survival look increasingly slim.
On Monday, Shimla witnessed landslides at two places — the Shiv Bawadi temple in Summer Hill and Fagli. Five people were killed in the Fagli landslide.
At the site of the temple tragedy, among more than two dozen people frantically looking for signs of their loved ones is Pawan Sharma’s nephew Karandeep Sharma, an IT professional working in Chandigarh.
Ramesh Sharma, brother of Dr P L Sharma, the director of UIET, Himachal Pradesh University (HPU), Shimla. (Express photo by Saurabh Parashar)
“My uncle had gone with his entire family for the havan. Two of their tenants had accompanied them. Now they are all gone,” says Karandeep.
The bodies of Pawan Sharma’s tenants — Mansi Harish, who taught mathematics at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, and her husband Harish Kumar, an advocate — were among those recovered on Tuesday.
At the Sharmas’ house in Summer Hill, Pawan Sharma’s elder sister Sudesh Sharma said, “Pawan was a staunch devotee of the Shiv temple. He would go there almost every day, especially during the sawan month. Yesterday, he had a havan in the temple for which he took his entire family. Our tenants went along too. They were almost family,” said Sudesh Sharma, who is from Una.
Rescue teams of the SDRF and the Army, which started work within hours of the disaster, have found 12 bodies so far.
SDRF SP (Shimla), Ilma Afroz, said, “The rescue work will continue until finding the last person. Today, we have increased our workforce.”
Locals said the accident took place when an aarti was going on and more than 30 people were inside.
Among the 12 dead are P L Sharma, 59, who taught mathematics at HPU, his wife, Rekha Sharma, 54, and younger son, Ish Sharma, 25, a PhD scholar. Sharma’s elder son Arun Sharma, an Assistant Professor at Jammu University, said, “My father had organised a puja at the temple yesterday for which my brother flew in from Mumbai. They have found my mother’s body; the search is still for my father and brother.” He is accompanied by his uncle Ramesh Sharma, 55, the headmaster of a government senior secondary school in Bilaspur.
Meanwhile, fresh landslides were reported near Lalpani area in Shimla on Tuesday evening. Four houses and a slaughterhouse have been damaged with two people reported to be trapped in one of the houses.
The temple collapse was among the several rain-related accidents in Himachal Pradesh over the last two days, in which more than 50 people have been killed. A yellow alert has been issued in Chamba, Kangra, Kullu, Mandi, Solan, Shimla, Sirmaur and Hamirpur for Tuesday.
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