As rain stops, Himachal shifts focus on rescue

As many as 2,000 tourists stranded in Himachal Pradesh’s Kasol were evacuated and more than 300 tourist vehicles stuck in Lahaul following landslides and flash floods left for their respective destinations, the state government said.

Teams are working tirelessly to clear the Dunkhara landslide on the Kasol-Bhuntar road. The district administration is coordinating the relief efforts, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said in a tweet. Over 300 tourist vehicles stuck in Lahaul have also left for their respective destinations, he said.

Sukhu had said on Tuesday that all stranded tourists would be evacuated by Wednesday and that six helicopters had been deployed for the task. He had also said that the hill state has suffered an estimated loss of Rs 4,000 crore due to the rains.

A total of 873 roads are still blocked for vehicular traffic, according to officials. Light to heavy rains lashed parts of Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday with Dhaula Kuan recording 144.5 mm of rainfall, Renuka 87 mm, Reckongpeo 42 mm, Kotkhai 30 mm, Hamirpur 16.5, Shimla 13.5, Dharamshala 13 mm and Kalpa 10 mm, according to the local meteorological department. The weather office has issued a ‘yellow’ warning for heavy rain, thunderstorm and lightning on July 15 and 16 in the state.

In Haryana, one person was electrocuted while wading through a waterlogged street in a residential colony in Ambala Cantonment and three bodies were found floating in water in Ambala city on Wednesday, police said.

Ambala district is the worst hit in Haryana, which was pounded by heavy rains between Saturday and Monday.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar will visit Ambala on Wednesday to take stock of the situation in the district, officials said. The incessant downpour left houses inundated and caused extensive damage to crops and vegetables in many districts. The overflowing Yamuna has flooded vast tracts of farmland in Karnal district.

In Punjab, nearly 10,000 people have been evacuated so far in Patiala, Rupnagar, Moga, Ludhiana, Mohali, SBS Nagar and Fatehgarh Sahib districts, officials said. The death toll due to rain-related incidents in Haryana and Punjab is 15, according to government data.

Ambala, Yamunangar, Kurukshetra, Patiala, Rupnagar, Jalandhar, SBS Nagar and Mohali are some of the affected districts in the two states.

The governments have set up relief shelters in several districts in the two states.

The weather remained clear at most places for the second day in the region on Wednesday.

With inputs from PTI