Cloudburst, landslide claim 16 lives in Uttarakhand, Manipur

At least 16 people were killed in rain-related incidents in Uttarakhand and Manipur on Wednesday. Seven people were killed and two injured in a cloudburst that washed away parts of Dehradun, while nine people, including eight children, were killed in landslide caused by heavy rain in Manipur’s Tamenglong district.

Uttarakhand State Emergency Operation Centre officials said a family of four was killed when their house in Shastri Nagar in Vasant Vihar area collapsed in heavy rain that followed the cloudburst. Two others were injured in the same incident. Three others drowned in Charba, Balbir Road and Bhagat Singh Colony areas, officials said.

The house collapse victims are Santosh Sahni (35), his wife Sulekha (30) and their sons Neeraj (3) and Dheeraj (5). Their house rested on an embankment along a drain, officials said. Excess water in the drain damaged the embankment, leading to the house collapse, police said.

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

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

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

In Manipur, the landslide took place around 3am on Wednesday at three different places of Tamenglong district headquarter, about 150km west of Imphal. According to deputy commissioner Ravinder Singh, the bodies of two children were yet to be recovered.

Tamenglong district borders Assam’s North Cachar hill district and Nagaland’s Peren district. “The unfortunate incident happened after heavy rain in the area which lasted for 3-4 hours,” Singh said. The eight children are aged up to 18 years. They belong to three families of New Salem under ward number 4, Neigailong under ward number 2 and Ramgailong under ward number 3, police sources said. They were asleep when the incident took place. One child’s mother also died in the incident.

Chief minister N Biren has assured an ex gratia of ₹5 lakh each for those killed while the district administration of Tamenglong opened a relief control room at the deputy commissioner’s office.