22 killed in Himachal Pradesh rains, nine of them in Shimla landslides

Shimla: Rain wreaked havoc in Himachal Pradesh on Monday, killing 22 people, nine of whom were buried underneath the rubble of a collapsed temple and some houses in two Shimla localities.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said nine bodies have been pulled out of the debris from a Shiv temple in the Summer Hill area that collapsed and the other site in the Fagli area where several houses were buried under mud and slush.

In Solan district, seven members of a family were killed in a cloudburst.

Two houses in Solan were washed away following the cloudburst on Sunday night. While six people were rescued, seven others were killed in Jadon village, a police official said.

The dead have been identified as Harnam (38), Kamal Kishore (35), Hemlata (34), Rahul (14), Neha (12), Golu (8) and Raksha (12), Superintendent of Police, Solan, Gaurav Singh said.

In Balera panchayat of the district, two children died as their makeshift house collapsed in a landslide and the body of one of them has been recovered. Another woman died in a landslide in Banal village of Ramsheher tehsil, said Deputy Commissioner of Solan Manmohan Sharma.

In Hamrpur, Deputy Commissioner said that three persons have died while two are missing due to incessant rains in the district. He appealed to all the residents of the district to take special precautions in view of the bad weather and avoid going out unnecessarily.