Over the past three days, severe monsoon rains have caused landslides and floods across the four states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, and Jharkhand, killing at least 50 people, according to officials.
According to a report in News18, at least 36 people have died in Himachal Pradesh over the previous three days as a result of heavy rains that were followed by flooding and landslides.
Additionally, the state reported over twenty weather-related incidents with over ten persons injured. More worrisome is the fact that 743 highways have been shut by the monsoon rains, including the Manali–Chandigarh National Highway near Mandi and the Shimla–Chandigarh Highway at Shoghi.
In Uttarakhand, repeated cloudbursts on August 20 resulted in the deaths of four people and the disappearance of up to ten others as rivers burst their banks, flung mud and water inside homes, washed away bridges, and forced the evacuation of numerous communities.
Six people have already died in Odisha as a result of the rain and flooding, with rescue workers finding at least two more bodies in the Kuchinda region of the Sambalpur district. A top official stated that on August 19 in Odisha, four people—two of them girls—lost their lives in cases of wall collapse during heavy rain.
P K Jena, Special Relief Commissioner, further disclosed that two fatalities each occurred in the Keonjhar and Balasore districts and in the Mayurbhanj district.
Additionally, as part of its preparation to fight the flooding in the Subarnarekha River system, the district administration of Odisha's Mayurbhanj and Balasore initiated a massive evacuation operation in low-lying districts, according to officials on Sunday.
