Heavy rain to continue till July 27, alerts issued

Heavy to very heavy rain is set to continue across the state during the next 24 hours. The state’s Meteorological Department has issued an orange warning of heavy rain for Chamba and Kangra districts and a yellow warning for Sirmaur, Mandi and Una districts for the next 24 hours. A yellow warning has also been issued for various districts till July 27.

During the past 24 hours, the state received very heavy to heavy rain at isolated areas and light to moderate rain at most places, wreaking havoc across the state.

Kangra received the highest of 147.4 mm of rain, followed by Mandi (112 mm), Nahan (95.7 mm), Dhaula Kkuan in Sirmaur district (78 mm), Kufri (76 mm), Sundernagar (73.3 mm), Palampur (69.4 mm), Narkanda (63.5 mm), Bilaspur (60 mm), Solan (53.6 mm), Paonta Sahib (48 mm), Shimla (46.2 mm), Dharamsala (26.5 mm), Una (21.2 mm), Chamba (10 mm) and Manali (5 mm).

As per the Meteorological Department, light to moderate rainfall is likely to continue at most places of the state along with a few spells of heavy to very heavy rain in isolated areas of the state till July 27.

Heavy rainfall also occurred in many places in Shimla district over the past 24 hours. As a result, educational institutions were ordered to remain closed for a day in Kumarsain, Jubbal, Rohru, Chopal, Theog and Sunni areas in the district.

A meeting of the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Commissioner, Shimla, Anupam Kashyap, over the current monsoon season and the obtaining situation in the district.

Kashyap sought detailed reports from the department officials about rainfall, landslides, roads blocked, loss of human and animal lives and other damage in Shimla district. He instructed all departments to work in coordination to effectively deal with any emergency situation.

He said that so far, 11 persons had lost their lives in Shimla district due to heavy rainfall. He added that, according to various departmental assessments, the total estimated loss in the district amounted to Rs 78.34 crore.

The Deputy Commissioner said that an adequate number of departmental workers and machinery had been deployed in all subdivisions of Shimla to ensure a prompt response in case of disasters.

Himachal Tribune