537 roads blocked in Himachal Pradesh, rain to continue till Aug 12

As many as 537 roads, including four national highways, have been blocked for vehicular traffic as heavy downpour wreaked havoc across Himachal Pradesh during the past 24 hours.

As many as 316 roads including two NHs (NH-21 and 3) in Mandi district, 118 including NH-305 in Kullu, 26 in Shimla, 23 in Kangra, 18 in Chamba, 17 in Sirmour, eight each in Una and Solan and one each in Bilaspur and Kinnaur district (NH-5) are blocked.

Also, as many as 635 distribution transformers including 304 in Solan, 285 in Mandi, 41 in Shimla, three in Kullu and two in Chamba district and 266 water supply schemes, including 120 in Kangra, 88 in Mandi, 27 each in Solan and Hamirpur and four in Shimla district, have been disrupted.

Till now, a total of 108 persons have lost their lives due to various natural disasters such as cloudbursts, flashfloods, landslides etc triggered by torrential rain during the ongoing monsoon.

As per the state’s Meteorological Department, light to moderate rain along with few spells of heavy rainfall is very likely to continue across the state till August 12, with yellow warning being issued for various districts till August 12.

Meanwhile, very heavy to heavy rain along with light to moderate rain continued to occur across the state during the past 24 hours. Kasauli in Solan district received 145 mm rain, which was the highest in the state. Also, Dharampur in Solan and Gohar in Mandi received 120 mm rain each, Nagrota Surian in Kangra and Naina Devi in Bilaspur received 90 mm each, Sundernagar 80.3 mm, Kangra 71.4 mm, Bilaspur 70.4 mm, Dhaulakuan 67 mm, Mandi 65.8 mm, Shimla 64.4 mm, Dharamsala 64 mm, Nadaun 50 mm, Kufri 47 mm, Narkanda 44.5 mm, Sarahan 42.5 mm, Palampur 40 mm, Solan 32.2 mm, Dehra Gopipur 27 mm, Bhuntar 22.2 mm, Kalpa 14 mm, Reckong Peo 13.5 mm, Una 5.6 mm and Manali 5.2 mm.