Emergency workers rescued nearly 1,000 people who were stranded in different parts of the Himalayas following torrential rainfall in northern India, which caused widespread damage and left at least 12 people dead, officials said on Thursday.
The capital Delhi received intense rainfall late on Wednesday, totalling 147 mm (5.8 inches) in eastern parts of the city and its suburbs, the India Meteorological Department said.
At least seven people died in Delhi, according to local media.
Three people died and parts of two bridges washed away after a cloudburst – a massive amount of rain in a brief period – in Uttarakhand state, officials said, and bad weather was hampering communications in the hilly terrain.
Rescue workers saved over 1,000 people who were stranded in different locations on the Kedarnath route – a trek to a Hindu pilgrimage site – and a patch of the national highway was washed out, district official Saurabh Gaharwar said by phone.
Uttarakhand, which is prone to flash floods and landslides, was ravaged by record rainfall in 2013, and nearly 6,000 Hindu devotees on pilgrimages went missing.
In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh state, two people died and nearly 50 were missing after flooding caused by rains, authorities said.
Photos shared by the state chief minister showed rescue workers crossing streams by rope, as muddy water gushed through rocks between hills.
“The situation is quite bad there and we are trying to pull out people, dead bodies (if any) from the debris,” Jyoti Rana, a district official in the capital Shimla, told Reuters.
Some climate experts have attributed the extreme rainfall, flash floods and deadly landslides seen in the mountains of India, Pakistan and Nepal over the past few years to climate change.
Earlier this week, landslides swept through tea estates and villages in Kerala, killing at least 178 people after unexpectedly heavy rain.
In Delhi, water leaked from the glass dome of a newly constructed parliament building. The leak was later repaired.
Delhi has experienced a series of extreme weather events in the past few months, from scorching temperatures to floods and rainfall that caused a roof collapse at the city’s airport.
(Reuters)