Himachal cloudbursts: Toll reaches 14, about 40 still missing

Shimla, August 5

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The death toll due to flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in three districts of Himachal Pradesh increased to 14 on Monday while about 40 people are still missing, officials said.

About 40 people are still missing after a series of cloudbursts occurred in Kullu's Nirmand, Sainj and Malana, Mandi's Padhar and Shimla's Rampur subdivision on the night of July 31 and wreaked havoc.

The worst hit was Samej village on the border of Shimla and Kullu district where over 30 people are missing.

Of the total, eight bodies were recovered from Mandi's Rajbhan village, five from Rampur in Shimla district and one from Nirmand in Kullu district, officials said on Monday.

“All the five bodies recovered from Samej are yet to be identified and we have taken DNA samples of 37 relatives of the missing persons,” said Shimla Deputy Commissioner Anupam Kashyap said.

The post-mortems are being conducted and the DNA samples will be sent to a forensic lab in Junga for identification of the deceased, he added.

According to the officials, 410 rescuers from teams of the Army, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP, CISF, Himachal Pradesh Police and home guards are involved in the hunt and rescuers have intensified the search operation by deploying more machinery, sniffer dog squad, drones and other equipment.

The hill state has suffered a loss of Rs 684 crore since the onset of monsoon on June 27 till August 5. Eighty-seven people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents, as per the state emergency operation centre.