After over 60 hours, weather god smiled at Kinnaur for a few hours in the morning and stranded Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his staff were airlifted from picturesque Sangla valley to Mandi.
As soon as the weather condition improved in Kinnaur on Tuesday morning, chopper stationed at Rampur of Shimla district rushed to Sangla valley and airlifted Chief Minister and his staff to Pandoh in Mandi district, where he again
started campaigning for the by-election.
Bharat Khera, Secretary (General Administration), supervising the rescue and evacuation operation, said that several sorties of chopper were made and old and sick persons were airlifted to different places on priority basis.
Some old tourists stranded in different parts of Kinnaur were also airlifted. However, due to blockades of roads connecting to Sangla valley and Kalpa, the two important tourist locations, more than 1,000 tourists are still stranded.
Meanwhile, there was some relief from rain on Tuesday. Deputy speaker and Kinnaur MlA Jaggat Singh Negi said that there was huge loss of life and property due to the heavy rain and flash floods which occurred for past four days in the district and worst affected area is situated on Tibet border.
Meanwhile, PWD department with the help of Border Road Organization (BRO) is making all efforts to open the Indo-Tibet national highway-22 which has been blocked in over dozen places due to the landslides and heavy rains.
“The road is likely to become functional in next two-three days provided the weather condition does not deteriorate in coming days,” said a PWD official. He added that over hundred vehicles are stranded at different places on the narrow national highway, which is making the restoration work more complicated as machines could not be moved and manual labour would be used.
Heavy rains have not only caused loss to life and property but even the hydro power station were also shut down and there was no cell phone network and electricity for past four days. Officially till now only 10 people have died but local residents claim that more death could be reported from the interiors.