Four including four-month old baby die in car buried under landslide debris
Tuesday, 22 AUGUST 2023 | PNS | NEW TEHRI
With disasters rising in frequency in the State, four persons died following a landslide in the Tehri district on Monday. This mishap comes a day after seven pilgrims died and 28 were injured in a bus accident on the Rishikesh-Gangotri national highway. According to officials, four persons died after landslide debris buried a number of vehicles near the taxi stand at Chamba in New Tehri on Monday afternoon. The four casualties including one child were in a car which was buried in the landslide debris. The quantity of the debris was such that the authorities had to deploy six mechanical excavators to clear the debris in search of survivors and bodies.
The landslide occurred at about 1 PM when a mountainside near the police station on the New Tehri Road in Chamba collapsed in a sudden landslide. The debris covered the approach road to the Chamba police station and the Rishikesh-Gangotri highway further downhill. At least two two-wheelers and two cars were buried in the landslide debris. The Tehri district magistrate Mayur Dixit and senior superintendent of police Navneet Bhullar along with State Disaster Response Force, police and Revenue department personnel reached the site and started the search and rescue operation. At about 4:30 PM the teams recovered three bodies from a car buried in the debris. The fourth body was recovered later in the evening. Those who died in the landslide have been identified as Punam Khanduri (30), her four-month old son Shreyansh and her sister in-law Saraswati Devi (42) while the body of a man recovered had not been identified till the time of this report being filed. The DM said that the quantity of debris was considerable due to which one could not rule out the possibility of more people being stuck under. He ordered the teams to continue the search and rescue efforts till all the debris are cleared. Apart from this, he also ordered that four families living in the proximity to the landslide site should be shifted to a safer location.
