Four killed in landslide in Uttarakhand's Chamba, search operation under way

Four persons, including two women and a four-month-old baby, were crushed to death after being hit by a landslide in Chamba in Uttarakhand's Tehri district on Monday, police said.

Tehri Senior Superintendent of Police Navneet Singh Bhullar said the body of a 30-year-old man was pulled out of the debris in the evening, he said. The SP said he was identified as Prakash, a local.

Bhullar said four bodies have been recovered so far and search is underway for another missing person.

Earlier in the day, bodies of two women and a child were found in a car which was buried under the landslide rubble. The deceased were identified as Poonam Khanduri, her four-month-old son and her sister-in-law Saraswati Devi.

Some more vehicles could also be trapped as the landslide hit a taxi stand near the Chamba police station, he said.

The landslide has blocked the New Tehri-Chamba motor road, the police said, adding that the State Disaster Relief Force has deployed excavator machines to carry out search and rescue. District Magistrate Mayur Dikshit, SSP Bhullar and Chief Development Officer Manish Kumar are at the spot, police officials said.

Meanwhile, all schools from class 1 to 12 and anganwadi kendras in Bhilangana, Chamba, Narendra Nagar and Jaunpur in Tehri district have been closed on Tuesday on the orders of the DM in view of the MeT department's heavy rain alert for various parts of the state over the next two days.