At least 18 people have been killed in landslides triggered by heavy rains in India’s Himalayas over the weekend, officials said on Monday, with scores still trapped or missing.
Unusually heavy rains and melting glaciers have caused deadly floods in the mountainous region of neighboring India, Pakistan and Nepal over the past year or two, which government officials blame on climate change.
Television footage from India’s Himachal Pradesh state showed houses flattened by landslides, buses and cars hanging on cliff edges after roads collapsed, and hundreds of people at rescue sites as emergency teams struggled to clear rubble.
More casualties continued to be reported today while State Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh was inspecting some of the affected areas.
He said via X platform, formerly Twitter, that in one of the deadliest incidents, a temple collapsed in Shimla, the state capital, and rescuers recovered at least nine bodies.
State officials said schools and other educational institutions were ordered closed and vulnerable people moved to safe havens.