Dehradun district alone recorded 370 mm rainfall on Monday cutting off the state capital from the national capital as water flowed on National Highway 58 between Roorkee and Muzzafarnagar. Ganga was flowing 1.65 m above the danger mark in Haridwar, flooding houses in residential areas of the city. Human and animal corpses, trees, cars, TVs and refrigerators were seen floating in the river. The Triveni Ghat in Rishikesh was completely drowned. Inhabitants from the riverside ashrams have been evacuated. According to Anand Sharma, director, met department, ‘In the coming 24 hours, there will be no respite from rain.’ Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Disaster Rescue Force (NDRF) have been called in.
Piyush Rautela, executive director of Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre located in the state capital, said, ‘Continuous rainfall has made the situation very difficult. Bad weather has made deployment of helicopters impossible for rescue operations.’
Maximum casualty was reported from Rudraprayag district where 15 died, 11 were injured and one was missing. An old suspension bridge over Mandakini river near the confluence of Alaknanda and Mandakini was washed away. Rains and landslides wrecked havoc in the small district town falling en route to Kedarnath shrine. Officials said maximum casualty was on Kedarnath shrine route.
According to Anupam Dwivedi, district information officer of Rudraprayag, ‘The local administration along with NDRF and other rescue teams are organising relief camps at schools and college buildings. The PWD is clearing debris and repairing damaged roads on the Badrinath and Kedarnath highway.’
‘Thousands of pilgrims are stranded near Govind Ghat, en route to Hemkund Sahib. They were rescued by our personnel and local administration in a search and rescue operation lasting till Monday early morning,’ ITBP spokesperson Deepak Pandey said.
In Uttarkashi district, two persons died and 19 buildings were damaged while 5,000 pilgrims were stranded due to heavy rains. Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has cancelled his foreign trip and asked all secretaries and officials to speed up rescue operations.
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and over 1,000 tourists were stuck in Sangla Valley on Monday as the area was cut off due to landslides, an official said. Landslides have blocked the road leading to the valley in Kinnaur district. The CM has been stationed at Sangla village, some 275 km from state capital.
In Delhi, with 8.06 lakh cusecs of water released by Haryana from Hathni Kund to save Yamuna Nagar from being deluged by a furious Yamuna, the water level is likely to cross danger mark on Wednesday morning. Given the flood threat, all agencies have been put on a high alert by the government.