Sandeep K
Due to heavy rains, many people have lost their homes and family members. Now a new landslide has surfaced, causing a great loss for the locals and tourists of Sangla valley of Kinnaur district in Himachal Pradesh. The landslide happened around 1 PM Sunday when a group of travelers enjoying their ride on a tempo traveler. Out of nowhere multiple landslides resulting in boulders crashed the vehicle and took the lives of those tourists.
This incident took nine tourists’ lives and badly injured locals and three others. Not only this, but the multiple landslides also destroyed a bridge and damaged vehicles on the Batseri-Sangla road. Locals present in the nearest areas have witnessed this devastating situation happening in front of their eyes. They even recorded the incident and uploaded it on the internet.
The videos of landslides from Kinnaur went viral on the Internet. The videos featured big rocks shooting from hills and collapsing the nearest bridge. Some of those boulders even fell on the ongoing temp traveler. Causing multiple death and injuries.
People who were killed in the incident are Pratiksha Sunil Patil from Maharashtra, Amogh Bapat and Satish Katakbar from Chhattisgarh, Umarav Singh from Delhi and Rajasthan’s Deepa Sharma, Kumar Ulhar Ved Pathak, Anurag Bihani, Maya Devi and Richa Bihani
People who were badly injured are Shiril Oberoi from Delhi, Naveen Bhardwaj from Punjab, and Ranjit Singh, a resident of Batseri village in the Kinnaur district.
Most of them were visiting the popular tourist village Chitkul, but unfortunately, they had to go through Sangla Valley. That’s where the incident took place. Eight tourists and their driver were killed when gigantic boulders smashed their tempo traveler. Luckily, two of the tourists who were on the bus escaped their misfortune with injuries. Two of them are Shriil Obroy and Naveen Bhardbaaj.
Kinnaur official informed that the tempo traveler had been knocked off the road and fell in a ditch. The boulders also fell on the bridge and some local houses, too.
After the situation took place and viral videos of the landslide went viral on the internet, millions of people have expressed their grief and condolences. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed his deepest condolences for the deceased.
PM Modi has even announced an ex gratia of 2,00,000 rupees each for the next of kin of the deceased. Along with that, 50,000 rupees to the injured people for the treatment. All the money will be given from the Prime Ministers National Relief Fund.
To prevent situations like this in the upcoming days, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has given orders for the officials to get into rescue operations immediately. The officials are taking every necessary precaution to keep citizens safe from facing these kinds of devastating situations. Also, the officials have evacuated a large number of people from the most prone places to be hit by landslides and floods.
By Sunday the total number of people who have been evacuated has reached close to 2,50,000 and still many people are being evacuated. The landslide situation that took place in Kinnaur has been the most devastating and very unexpected for the whole country.
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