Incessant rains this week wreaked havoc in Himachal Pradesh as it triggered landslides across the state, blocking roads, bringing down houses, and causing damage to life and property. Teams of the State Disaster Response Force have been involved in rescue operations. The Indian Air Force also joined the operations evacuating people to safer places in the state’s Kangra district. In a tweet on Wednesday, the Indian Air Force said it carried out over 50 sorties and rescued over 780 people.
Around 60 people have been killed so far in rain and landslide related incidents, with more feared buried under rubble, as Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said it will take a year to rebuild the infrastructure.
“We have to get the infrastructure fully restored within a year. I am working with this in mind,” Sukhu said, adding it takes time to rebuild roads and water projects but the government is speeding up the process.
“It’s a big challenge, a mountain-like challenge. But we are not going to back away,” he said.
The state government will continue with its vision to make Himachal Pradesh “self-reliant” in four years and the country’s “most prosperous” state in 10 years.“But it will take a year for us to rise from this tragedy,” Sukhu, whose Congress government came to power last December, said.
According to Sukhu, the intensity of the rain was to blame for the massive damage, saying this was the “first time” about 50 people died in a single day, and on the lack of “structural designing” in the state, reported PTI.
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Several houses in Shimla’s Krishna Nagar area collapsed on Tuesday after a landslide which killed two people and many were feared trapped.
Sukhu said climate change could also be one of the reasons behind the rains that caused devastation. It never rained like this before in Lahaul-Spiti, he said, giving an example.