Shimla, September 1: Incessant rain battered northern India on Monday, triggering landslides in Himachal Pradesh and flooding parts of Punjab and Haryana, causing widespread damage to life, property, and livelihoods.
In Shimla district, three people were killed in two separate landslides after heavy rain lashed the region through Sunday night. At Mohal Jot village in Junga tehsil, Virender Kumar, 35, and his 10-year-old daughter died when their house was buried under debris. His wife survived as she was outside at the time, though cattle were also killed. In another incident, an elderly woman was buried alive when a landslide struck her house in Chol village of Kotkhai area.
The rains also battered Punjab, where Jalandhar faced severe waterlogging after torrential downpours flooded homes and showrooms, leaving large parts of the city without power for hours. In Patiala, the Ghaggar river swelled near Bhankharpur, prompting flood warnings for several villages in the Rajpura sub-division.
Vehicular traffic on the Parwanoo-Solan-Kandaghat-Shimla route remained intermittently disrupted as debris and boulders rolled onto the highway. Railway operations on the Kalka-Shimla heritage line were suspended after muck blocked tracks at Koti, Gumman, and Sanwara, choking one tunnel. A Shimla-bound train was cancelled, while another was terminated at Dharampur, officials said.
“In a bid to clear the railway track, muck and boulders were hurled on the highway below, which disrupted two lanes,” said Anand Dahiya, Project Director, National Highways Authority of India, Shimla.
Meanwhile in Kapurthala district, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Rural Development) Varinderpal Singh Bajwa reviewed relief work in flood-hit villages of Mansurwal Bet, Raipur Arayan, and Mand Talwandi Kuka in Bholath. “The civil and police administration, under the leadership of Deputy Commissioner Amit Kumar Panchal, is going on day and night,” Bajwa told villagers, urging them to move to relief camps set up at safer places.
He added that Dhussi Bandh at Mansurwal had been inspected and declared safe, and assured people that arrangements for food, shelter, medical aid, and fodder for livestock were in place. Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and local social organisations were working alongside the administration in evacuation and relief efforts, Bajwa said.
