Primary school roof collapse kills 18 kids |
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Rescuers search for survivors at the school. (AFP) |
Dehradun, Aug. 18 (PTI): At least 18 children were killed after the roof of their primary school in Uttarakhand collapsed in landslides following a cloudburst-triggered downpour, less than a fortnight after Ladakh’s killer rain that was blamed on the same weather phenomenon.
Six children have been rescued from the debris of the Saraswati Shishu Mandir at Sumgad village in the hilly Bageshwar district.
The bodies of the 18 children have been recovered and a search is on to find six children still missing, chief minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank said this evening. There were 30 children in the class. The rescue has been hampered by bad weather, and poor road connectivity is slowing efforts to rush the injured to hospitals.
Nearly a dozen houses around the school have also been flattened by the landslides that followed the cloudburst-induced incessant rain since last night.An administrative team of senior officials has been rushed to the area.
Bageshwar district magistrate D.S. Garbiyal confirmed the tragedy occurred because of cloudburst-sparked landslides.
Rescue teams from the district headquarters had a tough time reaching the spot after a bridge linking the area with nearby town Kapkot also collapsed in the heavy rain, according to district development officer S.K. Singh.
However, locals sprang to the rescue immediately after the incident and brought six children out of the rubble, Singh said.
Anup Nautiyal, the CEO of Emergency Response Service, one of the agencies engaged in rescue, described the incident as a “grave” tragedy. He said the operations were continuing despite the bad weather and poor connectivity. “We have already deployed few ambulances on the spot and relief work continues as we speak now,” he said.
Chief minister Pokhariyal announced a compensation of Rs 50,000 each to the families that have lost their children. Governor Margaret Alva expressed grief over the deaths. In her message, Alva said she was praying to God to give strength to the family members of the children to bear the loss, a Raj Bhavan release said.
Over 100 people had perished in the Ladakh downpour of August 6. Most of them were buried alive under walls of mud and debris that had come crashing down on Leh and other areas of the picturesque region.
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