Himachal rains: Rs 10,000 crore damage estimated due to heavy rainfall, over 70 dead

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). 

The death toll in rain-battered Himachal Pradesh rose to 74 as another body was pulled out of the rubble of a Shiva temple in Shimla. Two more people were killed in Chamba district, officials said on Thursday. Only in Shimla, there were three significant landslides that resulted in 21 deaths: in the Shiva temple on Summer Hill, in Fagli, and in Krishnanagar. Eight persons are still said to be trapped under the temple rubble.

On Thursday, the state's chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu visited the districts devastated by the recent rain and flooding. He predicted that the damage caused by the two disastrous bouts of heavy rain—this week and in July—would cost the state nearly Rs 10,000 crore and that it will take a year to reconstruct the infrastructure that was destroyed by this monsoon.

According to the state emergency operation centre, two rain-related deaths were recorded in Chamba district, bringing the total number of fatalities over the previous four days to 74. Beginning on Sunday, there were three days of nonstop rain throughout the state. Since the beginning of the monsoon on June 24, as many as 217 persons have perished in rain-related events in Himachal Pradesh.

Rescue operations are still underway at the landslide sites in Shimla. So far, 14 bodies have been recovered from Summer Hill, five from Fagli and two from Krishnanagar, SP Gandhi said. The Indian Army, Air Force and other rescue personnel evacuated 309 people from the flood-affected area in Kangra district's Fatehpur and Pong Dam in Indora. Over the last three days, 2074 people have been evacuated from these areas.

Meanwhile, due to soil erosion beyond its abutments by the Ganga, which is in spate as a result of recent heavy rains in Uttarakhand, the renowned Ram Jhula suspension bridge in Uttarakhand's Rishikesh was closed to two-wheelers on Thursday.