Cloudburst kills 7 people in Dehradun; IMD predicts heavy rainfall in next two days

Seven people were killed and two injured in a cloudburst that washed away parts of Dehradun on Wednesday morning, Uttarakhand disaster management relief officials said.

A family of four was killed when their house in Shashtri Nagar in the Vasant Vihar area collapsed on them in the heavy rains that followed the cloudburst. Two others were injured in the same incident.

Three others drowned in Ch- arba, Balbir Road and Bhagat Si- ngh Colony areas, the officials sa- id. State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) officials said named the house collapse victims as Santosh Sahni (35), his wife Sulekha (30) and sons Neeraj (3), Dheeraj (5). Their house rested on an emb- ankment along a drain. Excess water in the drain damaged the embankment, leading to the house collapse, the police said.

Pramod Sahni (35) and Jagdish Sahni (70) were found injured and were taken to Government Doon Medical Hospital.

Bikram Singh, director Meteorological Department (MeT) department said that within one hour, parts of the state capital got 87 mm of rain. “Such heavy rainfall is received only when there’s a cloudburst. Seemadwar, Vasant Vihar and Forest Research Institute (FRI) areas were worst affected.” The average rainfall within 24 hours was only 11 cm.

The MeT department has predicted heavy to very rainfall at isolated places in Uttarakhand in next 48 hours.