Massive landslide in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu, several houses collapsing

Massive landslide in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu, several houses collapsing

Kullu: A massive landslide was on Thursday reported in Himachal Pradesh Kullu’s Ani in which at least eight residential buildings were destroyed. No loss of life was reported in the incident. Disturbing visuals showed massive commercial building collapsing amidst the terrifying landslide.

Videos showed several buildings on a hillside come crashing down, along with trees and rubble.

The LIVE videos of collapsing of these buildings have gone viral on social media within a few minutes, in which screams of local residents could be heard, who were running away from the area to save their lives.

Deputy Commissioner Kullu Ashutosh Garg said these buildings were prone to collapse, so the administration had got them vacated a week ago.

Due to incessant rain, the strata has become loosned in the region, which resulted in the collapse of these buildings.

The DC the administration is keeping a close vigil on the situation.

The Chief Minister said the administration had identified the risk and evacuated a commercial building two days earlier.

The meteorological office on Wednesday issued a ‘red alert’ predicting “heavy to very heavy rainfall with isolated spells of extremely heavy rains” in six of the state’s 12 districts for the next 24 hours. As many as 120 people have died in rain-related incidents in the state this month while a total of 238 people have died and 40 are still missing since the onset of monsoon in Himachal Pradesh on June 24. The ‘red alert’ warning was issued in the afternoon for parts of Kangra, Kullu, Mandi, Shimla, Solan and Sirmaur districts.

The MeT Department also issued an orange warning of heavy to very heavy rains on Thursday. Himachal saw three major spells of heavy rains this Monsoon.

The first on July 9 and 10 led to large-scale destruction in Mandi and Kullu districts. Shimla and Solan districts were hit during the second spell on August 14 and 15 and Shimla city suffered heavy damage in the third spell on Tuesday night.

Over 12,100 houses have been completely or partially damaged, according to the state emergency operation centre. The state has suffered losses of Rs 10,000 crore so far due to the heavy rains. — with inputs from Kullu