At least eight houses, including six makeshift ones, were razed to the ground by a massive landslide in the Krishnanagar locality of Himachal Pradesh on August 15 morning, leaving two dead and several missing. A slaughterhouse was also buried under the debris. Videos of the incident, in which big trees could be seen falling on homes with deafening noise and calls for help, went viral on social media. Government sources say that the possibility of more people dead or trapped under the debris cannot be ruled out.
State emergency services also recovered four more bodies out of the rubble of a collapsed Shiv temple in Shimla on Tuesday, apart from the eight bodies already recovered. Rescuers feared that 10 more were still trapped in the rubble of the temple, which was hit by an earlier landslide. The death toll from the heavy rains that have battered Himachal Pradesh since Sunday night has crossed 53.
In Uttarakhand, five people died in rain-related incidents as rivers continued to flow near the danger mark in the hills. As landslides continue to block roads and the weather forecast warned of more rains in the next few days, the State government has suspended the Char Dham Yatra.
