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An estimate put the damage from heavy rains in India’s Himachal Pradesh at about Rs 10,000 crore, its chief minister said on Thursday, while the death toll reached 74 as another body was pulled out of the rubble of a Shiva temple in Shimla.
Twenty-one of these deaths were in the three major landslides in Shimla alone – at the Shiva temple in Summer Hill and in Fagli and Krishnanagar. Eight people are still feared buried in the temple debris.
Two rain-related deaths were reported in Chamba district, pushing the death count over the past four days to 74, according to the state emergency operation centre, reports India Today.
The state received heavy rains for three days, beginning Sunday. As many as 217 people have died in rain-related incidents in Himachal Pradesh since the onset of the monsoon on June 24.
Rescue operations are still underway at the landslide sites in Shimla. So far, 14 bodies have been recovered from Summer Hill, five from Fagli and two from Krishnanagar, SP Gandhi said.
The Indian Army, Air Force and other rescue personnel evacuated 309 people from the flood-affected area in Kangra district's Fatehpur and Pong Dam in Indora. Over the last three days, 2,074 people have been evacuated from these areas.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Thursday visited the rain and flood-affected areas in the state.
He said the state will take a year to rebuild the infrastructure damaged by the heavy rains this monsoon and estimated that the loss in the two devastating spells of heavy rains – this week and in July – is about Rs 10,000 crore.
The state has been hit by 113 landslides in the 55 days since the monsoon began, causing losses of Rs 2,491 crore to the Public Works Department (PWD) and Rs 1,000 crore to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), reports NDTV.
In Shimla's Summer Hill, a section of the railway tracks has been swept away, leaving the tracks hanging in the air.
Experts say that frequent landslides are caused by unscientific constructions in the ecologically fragile Himalayas, depleting forest cover, and structures near streams that block the flow of water.
On top of tales of personal loss, the livelihoods of thousands have also been hit hard in the rain-battered state. Tourism and the apple trade, which are the driving force behind the state's economy, are the worst affected.
Taxi drivers, who used to earn Rs 2,000 per day, now claim to be earning as low as Rs 200. Hotels and guest houses, which usually have a 50-60 per cent occupancy have said it has come down to just 5 per cent.
