7 feared dead in J& K landslide

Srinagar- Jammu highway also remains closed for more than one week, disrupting supplies to the Valley

Seven members of a family are feared dead after a residential house collapsed in the impact of torrential rains at Dessa, a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir’s mountainous district of Doda, on Friday. Two more deaths were reported from Uri area of frontier Baramulla district.

With these deaths, the toll in house collapses and other weather- related incidents in Jammu and Kashmir has risen to 26 in past few days.

Reports from Doda said that the house of one Jodh Ram at Diwal Kund, Dessa, crumbled as the area with most parts of the State received heavy rains overnight. Doda SSP Javed Naseeb Manhas said that the police and the Army on receiving report about the mishap launched a rescue operation, but could not find the victims. He added that the police was told that one Satish Kumar, along with his wife, four children and his brotherin- law, was sleeping inside the house when it collapsed.

“All the inmates were trapped under the debris and we fear that they might have died,” the police officer said. Reports said that sniffer dogs may be sent to this very remote and inaccessible to help the rescuers in retrieving the bodies from under the debris.

Hundreds of residential houses and other private and public properties, bridges and roads have been damaged in flash floods in Kashmir Valley and some other parts of the state past week.

Though there has been slight improvement in weather and the weatherman has predicted dry weather for next few days, non- stop torrential rains had played havoc in many party of the State particularly the Valley and Poonch district at the weekend when Jhelum and other rivers began to swell forcing people to flee their homes. The resultant flash floods not only damaged hundreds of residential houses, bridges, roads and other properties and disrupted means of communication, at least, 17 people were killed, 16 of them when a landslide swept through residential houses at Ladden in Central district of Budgam.

Many areas are still cut off from the district headquarters and both trade and travel services between two parts of Kashmir have been suspended following the Srinagar- Muzaffarabad road was hit by landslides.

The vital SrinagarJammu highway also remains closed for more than one week, disrupting supplies to the Valley.