New Delhi, Jul 9 (EFE).- At least five people were killed and two others injured Sunday in incidents related to heavy rains in northern India, where power and road blocks were reported in several parts, while the capital city of New Delhi registered record rainfall.
At least three members of a family were killed and two others injured after their house was buried in a landslide in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, Sanjeev Gandhi, the superintendent of police in Shimla – the region where the incident took place -, told EFE.
In Muzaffarnagar, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, a woman and her daughter died after the roof of their house collapsed due to heavy rains, the office of the city’s police superintendent told EFE.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red alert in several districts of the northern states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, northern Punjab and Haryana and Kashmir.
Moreover, it issued an orange alert for Madhya Pradesh and some areas of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya.
Meanwhile, a yellow alert has been declared in the Indian capital, which on Saturday recorded the highest single-day rainfall – 153 mm in 24 hours – for July since 1982, according to the IMD on Twitter.
Intense rainfall has also led to the temporary suspension of the Amarnath Yatra, an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a cave located at an altitude of 3,888 meters, about 150 km from Srinagar, in India-administered Kashmir.
Some 3,000 vehicles were stranded on the Srinagar-Jammu highway, where a portion of the road collapsed on Saturday and landslides were recorded, local news agency ANI reported.
The IMD has warned of high intensity rainfall in the coming days in New Delhi and neighboring areas, and the northern part of the country.
Heavy rains cause significant losses of lives, property and infrastructure every year in South Asian countries, especially during the monsoon period between May and September. EFE
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