Landslide hits bus in Himachal Pradesh, killing 15 people

Shimla: At least 15 passengers were killed as a private bus they were travelling in was struck by a massive landslide in Himachal Pradesh's Bilaspur district on Tuesday evening, PTI reported, citing an official account.

The accident took place in the Bhalughat area in Jhandutta assembly segment, they said, adding the bus carrying 30-35 passengers was on its way from Haryana's Rohtak to Ghumarwin.

Police and district administration officials are at the spot, and rescue operations are going on in full swing, the officials said.

So far, 15 bodies have been recovered from the debris, they added.

The whole mountain came crashing down on the bus, and the chances of survival of the passengers are bleak, said a policeman engaged in rescue operations.

Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has expressed grief over the accident and directed the officials to expedite the rescue operations, an official statement issued here said.

Intermittent rains have been lashing the area since Monday.

It was only on Sunday that torrential rains triggered landslides in West Bengal’s Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts, killing at least 23 people. Entire slopes caved in, highways were buried, and communication lines snapped, leaving villages cut off and hundreds of tourists stranded. Officials described it as the worst disaster in the region since 2015. According to the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 18 deaths were reported from Darjeeling, including 11 in Mirik, the worst-hit area, and seven in the Darjeeling subdivision. Another five bodies were recovered in Jalpaiguri’s Nagrakata area. “Total number of deaths reported so far is 23, spanning across Mirik, Darjeeling, and Jalpaiguri,” an NDRF official said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the North Bengal floods reached 28.