Monsoon arrives in Uttarakhand, shows its ugly face first

Heavy rains lashed Pithoragarh district on Monday killing a woman and damaging settlements of 14 families along with and a hydropower station at Seraghat.

Besides, 31 Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims were stranded at Naini Saini air strip in Pithoragarh.

A 42-year-old woman was buried under a landslide in Pithoragarh. Pithoragarh district magistrate C Ravi Shankar said, Narayani Devi had come out of her house for some work around 2 pm when she was hit by a boulder due to landslide and got buried under it.

“We have sent a team to the Banga Pani area for conducting the post mortem of the body,” he said.

Pithoragarh district information officer Girjashankar Joshi said it has been raining heavily in different parts of Kumaon since Sunday. “ Banga Pani is around 90 km from the district headquarters. Due to heavy rain, there was a landslide in which Narayani Devi was burried alive.

“The team of state disaster response force is already there,” he said.

Information about water entering Madkot, Bangapani, Seraghat and Dharchula areas was received at 1 am.

District magistrate Shankar said one house was severely damaged due to inflow of water and debris and there could be nearly a dozen houses facing damage.

Meanwhile, reports of water and debris entering the 5 megawatt hydropower station at Serghat was also received.

Shankar said: “We will be sending disaster relief teams at the hydropower station. At rest of the places, the administration, police and disaster teams are on move.”

All four regions are cut off due to landslides and heavy rainfall. As a result of which the teams are taking time in reaching the spots. But, the DM assured relief material was already stocked in these places.

“The connectivity, wooden bridges, steel girdle bridge and other transits are washed away. We will try to restore connectivity in two day’s time,” he said.

In addition, water-level of Gori and Kali rivers in the area are flowing at near danger level.

The meteorological department already predicted heavy rainfall in remote districts of the hill state, including Pithoragarh.

The Kailash Mansarovar pilgrims could not fly to Gunji base camp due to poor visibility. “There were 59 pilgrims in the 5th batch of which 28 were airlifted and 31 are still in the district,” said TS Martolia, yatra in-charge of the nodal agency Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam.

People close to the matter said the pilgrims were likely to be airlifted on July 3 once the sky gets clear.

Four rural motor roads are damaged in Pithoragarh district as per the information of State Emergency Operation Centre of Department of Disaster Management in capital. (With Inputs from Neeraj Santoshi in Nainital)