Rain hits normal life in north India; three killed in UP, Assam

 Rain pounded several parts of north India even as two persons died in a lightning strike in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda, while a man drowned in Assam’s Karimganj district.

In Uttar Pradesh, Luvkush (18) and his cousin Sunil (22) were killed and two others, including a woman, received burn injuries when lightning struck them in Chillaha village of Banda district on Thursday.

The floods in Assam claimed one life as over 1.52 lakh people of five districts were affected by overflowing waters of major rivers in Brahmaputra and Barak valleys. One person drowned in Karimganj, an Assam State Disaster Management Authority flood bulletin stated.

Karimganj district is the worst hit in the current wave of flood affecting more than 1.35 lakh people and inundating 8,000 hectares of cropland.

The 300-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway was closed for vehicular traffic due to blockade triggered by landslides in the Ramban and Udhampur districts of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Amarnath yatra was on Friday suspended for a few hours due to heavy rain around the holy cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas. It was later resumed from Pahalgam and Baltal routes. Rain continued to lash Delhi, which has received 191.9 mm of rainfall in June till now, the highest for the month in the last 10 years, leading to traffic snarls in some areas.

In Punjab and Haryana, moderate to heavy rain lashed most places, causing mercury to fall by up to ten notches. Ropar, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Phagwara, Ludhiana and Patiala, received moderate to heavy showers.