At least 16 people were killed in two separate incidents of landslide and cloudburst in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh today, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said.
Nine persons perished when a landslide, triggered by heavy incessant rains, hit a temple in Shimla, the capital city of Himachal Pradesh, while seven members of a family were killed in a cloudburst at a village in the state`s Solan district, he said in a Twitter post.
Sukhu said nine bodies have so far been pulled out of the debris from a Shiva temple in the Summer Hill area of Shimla.
According to officials, many more people are feared trapped under the landslides at the temple site amidst fears that the toll could rise.
Torrential downpours also swept many areas of Himachal Pradesh`s neighbouring state Uttarakhand resulting in the collapse of a defence building at Maldevta, flooding major rivers and their tributaries and causing landslides along the national highways, officials said. Several people are feared to be buried in landslides triggered by heavy rains in the state.
Alaknanda, Mandakini and Ganga rivers were flowing above the danger level at three places, the disaster control room in Dehradun said. The Badrinath National Highway is blocked at a number of places due to landslide debris.
There are reports of one person being buried under the debris near Pipalkoti and in Chamoli district, a flood-like situation has arisen along the banks of a dozen rivers, including Alaknanda and its tributaries. Landslides in the upper reaches of Nandakini have caused the water level of the river to increase in the lower areas.
