Uttarakhand: Rivers in spate, 180 roads blocked

In Uttarakhand, the body of another victim was retrieved from Haridwar district, 150 km away from the spot where a bus fell into Alaknanda river near Gholtir village here, officials said on Sunday. The death toll in the incident has now increased to six. The victim was identified as Lalit Kumar Soni (48), a resident of Pratap Chowk Gogunda, Rajasthan. Meanwhile, rivers and streams are in spate due to continuous rain in the high-altitude areas of the state.

According to the State Emergency Operations Center, a total of 180 roads including 2 national highways, 6 state highways are blocked due to rain and landslides in the state. The administration says that efforts are on to open the blocked roads. The Meteorological Department has forecast rain in the state from 29 June to 2nd July. The department has issued a red alert in Dehradun, Tehri, Pauri, Haridwar, Nainital, Champawat, Udham Singh Nagar districts and an orange alert in Bageshwar, Rudraprayag districts for Monday.

State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami took information about the situation of heavy rainfall in various districts of the state from the State Emergency Operations Center in Dehradun. In view of the warning of the Meteorological Department, the Chief Minister directed all the District Magistrates to remain on alert mode for the next 24 hours and keep all the resources related to disaster management fully ready. The government said that the decision to resume the yatra will be taken only after the weather clears.

Rescue work is going on at war footing at the site of heavy rain (landslide) near Silai Band, about 4 km ahead of Yamunotri National Highway Paligad. Disaster relief teams like Police, Fire, SDRF, NDRF, Revenue, NH Badkot, Health Department are continuously engaged in search and rescue work. During the heavy rain, 29 workers were residing in the said place/camp, out of which 20 workers are safe, who have been shifted to a safe place (Paligad) by the rescue team on Sunday morning. 2 workers have died in the incident, whose bodies have been recovered from Yamuna river between Badkot Tiladi and Chhatanga. 7 people are still missing. Search operation is going on to search for the missing people, said SDRF.