Many reportedly missing and several houses washed away in Uttarakhand floods

The overflowing of Tons river in Uttarkashi town due to excessive rain and cloud burst incidents have claimed several lives. The water in uncontrollable quantity has washed away houses and people too. As per the latest reports, about 18 persons were reported missing after the deluge in the Tons river of Uttarkashi district on Sunday.

The Tons river was overflowing above the danger mark for the last several days due to over-accumulation of water as a result of heavy rains. The Tons river, last night and today breached the local market of Uttarkashi. This has compelled the state administration to issue an alert and direct residents to leave their houses. The chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat has personally intervened and held urgent meetings with top bureaucrats of the concerned departments to expedite relief and rescue operations.

Last week about 6 persons were reportedly killed in Chamoli district due to heavy landslides and cloud burst incidents. The Gangotri highway and even the Jwalpa Devi Marg in Pauri Garhwal district near Dugadda have been closed. The heavy JPC machines are busy clearing the landslide debris on snake-shaped roads. This has led to immense inconvenience to the pilgrims and tourists including the local residents.

The Kempty Mussourie Yamunotri Road had also been closed due to heavy landslides. The PWD employees were busy clearing hundreds of tons of silt by heavy JCB machines. This has led to myriad queues of the cars of tourists and the locals on both sides of the roads.

In Chamoli, due to excessive rainfall, the Badrinath National Highway, Lambagad to Pipalkoti was also blocked due to landslides. This has severely affected the transport movement.

Uttarkashi had been the worst victim after Chamoli this monsoon. Due to a cloud burst in Uttarkashi, on Saturday night in Arakot area of Mori subdivision Makuri, Tikochi, Araakot, and Maunda villages were the worst victims. The destruction here has been devastating.

According to the villagers, the rivulets of these remote villages were over flooded due to cloud bursts. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of tons of slit enter their villages along with floodwaters from the over gushing rivulets. As a result, in Makuri village a woman named Sarojini Devi wife of Upendra Singh was killed due to asphyxiation. This was after she was pressed over tons of silt of these over gushing rivulets. The house of Chattar Singh of this village also got damaged due to a landslide.

There had been heavy loss of properties too after this cloud burst incident that forced myriad Silt ( Malba) into their houses. In addition to these losses and casualties in Makuri village, a woman namely Mangla Devi of Dakhwaan village of Patti Gyarah gaon in Ghansyali, Tehri, Garhwal was also brutally killed after a huge tree fell over her. She was merely 40 years old.

The government has pressed the ITBP, SDRF and the SDRF teams into service. They are busy in relief and rescue operations in the affected areas. Over 9 districts of Uttarakhand have been alerted regarding heavy rainfalls in the next twenty-four hours. This is to help exercise safety and preventive measures. Schools in five districts including Uttarkashi have been officially declared closed,  for the next couple of days.