Uttarakhand: 2 children killed in wall collapse; no trace of 20 missing in Gaurikund
Two children were killed when a wall of their house collapsed in Tehri on Sunday amid incessant rains at many places in Uttarakhand, while rescuers looked for the 20 missing people in the Gaurikund landslide incident for the third day in the inclement weather.
A total of 23 people were missing after the landslide in Gaurikund in Rudraprayag. Three bodies were recovered from the debris on Friday.
“The search operation was being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), SDRF, police and fire brigade teams in difficult circumstances. So far there is no clue of the missing,” Rudraprayags District Disaster Management Officer Nandan Singh Rajwar said.
The operation was being carried out from Dhari Devi to Kund Barrage on the banks of the Mandakini River and the incident site to find the missing people.
Chamba Police Station Officer LS Butola said that during the heavy rains on Saturday and Sunday, the rear wall of the house belonging to Praveen Das collapsed at around 2 am, killing his two children Sneha (12) and Ranveer (12) who were sleeping in the room.
Their grandfather Premdas (60), who was sleeping with the children, suffered a minor leg injury.
In another incident, 20-year-old Swati Jain, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, was rescued by SDRF personnel after he was swept away in a current at Sahastradhara tourist spot in Dehradun.
“She was safely pulled out of the water and taken to the hospital,” an official said.
After the Rudraprayag incident, the local administration has started marking the roadside shops between Sonprayag and Gaurikund that are at risk.
The Revenue Department removed some shops on Saturday.
Jitendra Verma, Sub-Collector of Ukhimath said that in view of the apprehension of danger, people in Gaurikund are themselves removing their temporary shops on the side of the road.
He said that the administration is marking the construction works under different categories based on the risk faced by them.
The administration has removed four pucca houses that are at high risk, while other temporary shops are being removed by their operators themselves.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)
