NEW DELHI, July 10 (PTI): Incessant rains have been playing havoc in parts of north India, particularly Himachal Pradesh where landslides claimed more than 20 lives even as the Army and NDRF teams stepped in to intensify the relief and rescue operations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken with chief ministers of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand about the situation and assured them of all help and support from the central government.
Modi also spoke with senior ministers and officials and took stock of the situation in the wake of excessive rainfall in parts of the country, his office said.
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Several rivers, including the Yamuna in Delhi, in north India are in spate. In cities and towns across the region, many roads and residential areas were submerged in knee-deep water with the civic system unable to hold on in the face of record rains on Sunday.
A total of 39 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams have been deployed in four north Indian states to tackle the heavy rains and floods. While 14 teams are working in Punjab, a dozen are deployed in Himachal Pradesh, eight in Uttarakhand and five in Haryana.
“The rescue operations are being undertaken as per the situation on ground and in coordination with the state authorities,” an NDRF spokesperson said.
In Punjab, the Army rescued 910 students and 50 others from a private university in the state after it was flooded with water due to heavy rains.
The civil administration in Punjab and Haryana had earlier sought help for the rescue operation from the Army, which sent the Flood Relief columns of Army’s Western Command to assist the administration in the flood affected areas of the two states.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday asked the Centre to make available additional relief from the PM CARES Fund for states affected by the torrential rain.
In Himachal Pradesh, landslides claimed four more lives in Shimla and the Shimla-Kalka highway was blocked Monday morning, police said.
At least 16 people were killed in rain-related incidents in the state in the last two days, chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said, adding the state has not witnessed such “widespread heavy rains” in the past 50 years.
Efforts are afoot to rescue 400 tourists and locals stranded at Chandertal and between Pagal and Teilgi nallah in Lahaul and Spiti, he added.
Three people died after a landslide struck a house in Theog subdivision of Shimla on Monday morning, police said.
The body of an elderly woman, who was trapped under debris following a landslide in Rajhana village on the outskirts of Shimla city, was retrieved on Sunday night, hours after the body of her granddaughter was recovered from the site.
On Monday morning, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a “red” alert for “extremely heavy rain”, a day after heavy rain pounded the state, triggering landslides, and damaging houses.
Officials said rail operations on the Shimla-Kalka route, a UNESCO world heritage site, have been suspended till Tuesday as landslides blocked the track at several places while educational institutions across the state were ordered to remain shut on Monday and Tuesday.
The Shimla-Kalka National Highway was blocked near Shoghi, about 16 km from the capital city, following a landslide on Monday.
More than 120 roads are blocked in the district while 484 water supply schemes have been affected, the officials said.
CM Sukhu appealed to the people to avoid venturing out in heavy rains, especially near rivers and nullahs, as the Met department has warned of heavy rains to continue.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday held a meeting over the torrential rains and the rising Yamuna water levels in the city.
Addressing a press conference, Kejriwal said the evacuation of people from low-lying areas around Yamuna will start once the river touches the 206-metre mark while assuring the people that experts have said the flood situation might not arise in the national capital.
The government is closely monitoring the situation and was fully prepared to tackle it, he said.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath directed all departments concerned to remain alert in view of a possible swelling of rivers due to heavy rains in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
In a review meeting following heavy rains, Adityanath asked officials to keep monitoring the situation, especially the river embankments, while flood units of the NDRF and SDRF as well as disaster management teams were directed to remain alert.
In Rajasthan, intense monsoon rains brought normal life to a standstill in eastern and central parts of the state, flooding out roads, rail tracks, and even hospitals. More showers are expected to lash around a dozen districts on Tuesday as well.
A seven-year-old boy was swept away in the gushing waters of an overflowing drain in the Murlipura area in state capital Jaipur, where several areas reeled from waterlogging.
The Met department has issued a yellow alert for heavy rainfall in Alwar, Banswara, Baran, Bharatpur, Dausa, Dholpur, Dungarpur, Karauli, Sawai Madhopur, Sirohi, and Udaipur on Monday and in Baran, Bundi, Dungarpur, Jhalawar, Kota, Pratapgarh and Sawai Madhopur on Tuesday. The state has 33 districts.
The IMD uses four colour codes for weather warnings – green (no action needed), yellow (watch and stay updated), orange (be prepared) and red (take action).
Rains battered many parts of Punjab and Haryana on Monday causing flooding at many places, as authorities scrambled to lead rescue operations to shift people to safer places.
The Punjab government ordered the closure of schools in the state till July 13 in view of the prevailing situation.
Chandigarh also witnessed record rainfall during the past three days, and a few roads were filled with rainwater.
Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann appealed to people not to panic as heavy rains caused flooding at some places in the state.
Punjab chief secretary Anurag Verma on Monday chaired a high-level meeting to take stock of the situation in the state and to speed up the relief work.
Mohali, Patiala, Rupnagar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Panchkula and Ambala are some of the worst-hit districts in the two states.
In view of the prevailing situation, Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar cancelled all his pre-scheduled programmes for the day and summoned an emergency meeting of senior officials of various departments.
He also took stock of the situation with senior officials in the meeting in which chief secretary Sanjeev Kaushal was also present.
In Uttarakhand, the Badrinath National Highway and several other roads were blocked due to incessant rains and landslides on Monday, officials said.
The traffic on the highway was restored after a few hours while efforts are on to open other roads that are still closed, they said.
