A red alert was today issued in Uttarakhand after heavy rains wreaked havoc in the hill state, flattening houses, blocking roads and paralysing tourist activities with panic-stricken people leaving some disaster-prone villages.
A day after landslides killed 18 school children in Bageshwar district, two more persons died in house collapse incidents. This led the state-run Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre (DMMC) to issue a red alert in the entire state. A total of 43 people have died so far in the rains-related incident this season.
Panic-stricken people were leaving some of the disaster-prone villages particularly in the hilly Bageshwar and Rudraprayag districts as incessant rains continued. Most of the people have migrated to safer areas from Nagjagai village in Rudraprayag and Sumgarh and Saling villages in Bageshwar district. All schools in the state have been closed for two days, an official statement said.
Nearly 75-100 houses collapsed overnight in different areas, officials here said. Nearly half a dozen houses were flattened in the hill resort of Mussoorie due to overnight heavy rains. In Harsiabagad area of Bageshwar district, nearly 12 houses collapsed.
In Bageshwar district where 18 children died after a school collapse, the authorities completed the rescue operation by recovering all the bodies. All the 18 bodies were handed over to their relatives after the post-mortem, police said.
Tourism bore the brunt of heavy rains as the ‘chardham’ yatra comprising pilgrimage to four hilly shrines – Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri, continued to hit due to heavy landslides at number of places in the Garhwal region. Tourism activities have also come to a standstill in Mussoorie, Nainital and other hill stations.