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Restoration of essential services gathered momentum across Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday, with the number of blocked roads declining to 152 as authorities continued large-scale clearance operations following heavy monsoon rains.
According to the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC), the number of blocked roads across the state fell to 152 by 6 p.m. on July 29 from 192 reported a day earlier. No national highway is currently blocked. Mandi district remains the worst affected with 58 blocked roads, followed by Kullu (31), Chamba (30), Sirmaur (14) and Shimla (14). Power supply also improved significantly during the day, with the number of disrupted Distribution Transformer Regions (DTRs) reducing to 72 from 189 reported earlier. Chamba accounts for 59 affected DTRs, followed by Mandi (8) and Sirmaur (5). The drinking water supply situation also showed improvement, with disrupted water supply schemes declining to 68 from 80. Hamirpur has the highest number of affected schemes (23), followed by Bilaspur (18), Mandi (16) and Chamba (15). Meanwhile, the SEOC's 24-hour incident report recorded three major incidents in Chamba district during the past 24 hours. These included two flash flood incidents and one road accident. The flash floods struck Oberi village under Patwar Circle Sultanpur and Geoti village under Patwar Circle Haripur, damaging 28 houses, one cowshed and one shop at Sultanpur. The flash floods also led to the blockage of one road in Haripur. No injuries or fatalities were reported in the flood incidents. A separate road accident at Lahar in Dalhousie tehsil claimed the lives of five persons, according to the SEOC report. Cumulative data for the monsoon season from June 30 to July 29 shows that 15 people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents across Himachal Pradesh. Of these, 14 deaths were caused by landslides, including 13 in Lahaul and Spiti and one in Chamba, while one person died in a flash flood in Kangra. No fatalities due to cloudbursts have been reported so far. The State disaster management authorities said restoration and clearance operations are continuing on a war footing, with emergency response teams remaining on round-the-clock alert to respond to any fresh monsoon-related emergencies. (ANI)
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