- Monday, February 24, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE number of deaths caused by the recent landslide in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh continued to go up as two more bodies were recovered on Monday (16), taking the toll to 25, a senior official said.
Search and rescue operations for those who went missing in the landslide that occurred last Wednesday (11) are still underway.
Sudesh Kumar Mokhta, director of the state’s disaster management, said as per the official sources, the two bodies were retrieved from the rubble at Chaura village on national highway 5 in Nichar tehsil of the state. He added that the rescue operation, which was suspended on Sunday (15) night, resumed on Monday morning.
He also said that an SUV and its passengers feared to have been buried under the debris were yet to be traced and feared that the vehicle could have rolled down.
The rescue operation is being carried out jointly by the National Disaster Response Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and members of the local police and home guards. On the day of the incident when a landslide buried a number of vehicles, 10 bodies were recovered and 13 people were rescued. Eight bodies were found in a taxi.
Two cars were also recovered in a damaged condition but no person was found in them.
On Thursday (12), four bodies were found from the site while three were recovered on Friday (13). On Saturday (14), six more bodies were retrieved. On Thursday, a local state corporation bus was found from under the rubble in a badly damaged condition. A truck was also found which had rolled down towards a riverside because of stones falling down a mountainside.
Himachal Pradesh chief minister told the state assembly after visiting the sport on Thursday that 16 people were still missing.
