Shimla landslide: NDRF's rescue op continues for fifth day; CM to declare Himachal monsoon fury as 'state disaster'

National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams on Friday continued their search and rescue operations for the fifth consecutive day at the landslide-hit Summer Hill in Shimla, with Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu all set to issue a notification declaring the monsoon fury in Himachal as a “state disaster”.

So far as many as 13 bodies among the 21 people who went missing after the massive landslide have been recovered, said the NDRF on Thursday. ““This is the fifth day of rescue operations…NDRF, army team, and SDRF are involved in the operations…we have searched 80 per cent of the area…machines can’t reach interior parts, we have to do the ops manually,” said NDRF inspector Naseef Khan.

Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Friday reiterated that there have been damages worth Rs 10,000 crore in the state.    

“Today, we will declare it as ‘state disaster’ and a notification will be released as well,” said the Chief Minister on monsoon fury in the state. As of Thursday, the death count from the monsoon rains in the state climbed to 74, as rescue workers pulled out another body from the rubble of a Shiva temple in Shimla’s Summer Hill while two more were killed in Chamba. Twenty-one people died in three major landslides in Shimla, including the one at the Shiva temple in Summer Hill. The state has been hit by 113 landslides in the 55 days since the monsoon began, causing losses of Rs 2,491 crore to the Public Works Department (PWD) and Rs 1,000 crore to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). On Thursday, Public Works Minister in Himachal Pradesh Vikramaditya Singh informed that the Central Government has approved Rs 2643.01 crore for the upgradation of 254 roads in rural areas for the year 2023-24 under Batch-1 of Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY-III). The Minister has expressed gratitude to the Central Government and especially to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Rural Development Minister Giriraj Singh and also thanked the Chief Minister Thakur Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu for constantly raising the issues of state interests before the Centre. With inputs from agencies