5, including 3 minors, killed as landslide buries mud house in J&K's Doda

Srinagar: Five people, including four members of a nomad family, were buried alive in sleep as their mud house came under a huge landslide in Jammu and Kashmir’s hilly district of Doda overnight, officials said on Monday.

They added that flash floods caused by days of torrential rains have wreaked havoc with population and properties in several parts of the state.

Doda’s Deputy Commissioner (DC) Simrandeep Singh told Deccan Chronicle that Bashir Ahmed, 25, Nageena Begum, 23, Zulfi Banoo, 9, Muhammad Sharief, 8, and one-and-a-half-year-old girl were killed when the mud house of one Noor Muhammad Gujjar was buried under debris in the impact of a landslide.

“The incessant rains triggered the landslide which buried a Kotha (mud shack) and five persons including four members of a family were killed on the spot. They were all nomads who would have shifted out of the area and returned to their permanent home down the hills soon,” he said.

The police said that the incident occurred up the Gali Bhatoli village of Gandoh area of Doda. The villagers immediately launched a rescue operation and were later joined by a police team, it said. The police added that dozens of sheep and bovines also perished in the incident.

The officials also said that 29 people, including ten children and six women trapped in flood-hit areas in Kathua district, were, however, rescued during overnight operations. An official spokesman said in Jammu that these operations were launched in Kathua’s Nagri, Chabbe Chak, Jakhole and Billawar by the police and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) personnel.

The schools and colleges in worst-affected Doda district were closed as a precautionary measure. The authorities said that control rooms have been set up at various places in this hilly belt and some other districts of the Jammu region in view of heavy rains in the last two days which resulted into a collapse of small bridges, washing away of roads and damage to both public and private properties.

Vehicular traffic was disrupted along the Srinagar-Jammu and Srinagar-Leh highways whereas several mountains passes have been closed following heavy to moderate snowfall in the upper reaches of the Himalayan state.