Cloudburst In Uttarakhand's Kedarnath, Several Feared Trapped

New Delhi: Cloudburst In Uttarakhand's Kedarnath, Several Feared Trapped. Three people were killed and at least six injured after a house collapsed in Haridwar district as heavy rain wreaked havoc in several parts of Uttarakhand on Wednesday evening.

A family is reported to have gone missing following a cloudburst in a village in the Ghansali area of Tehri district, officials said.

A house collapsed due to heavy rain in Bharpur village near Roorkee in Haridwar district, killing three people and injuring more than half a dozen after they got buried under the debris, police said.

The injured have been admitted to a hospital.

The sound of the house collapse was so loud that it scared the villagers, the police said.

Torrential rain for a few hours in Haridwar inundated the entire city, washing away a truck of kanwariyas in the Sukhi river in the Kharkhari area.

There were no kanwariyas in the truck but it had rations and essential goods for their return journey, the police said.

The kanwariyas alleged when they parked the truck there, no one alerted them about the area suddenly getting flooded when it rained heavily.

Kharkhari police post in-charge Sanjeet Kandhari said the truck was seen floating in the water. He said the vehicle would be retrieved when the rain stopped.

About a dozen four-wheelers standing in the same dry riverbed were washed away due to sudden flooding after heavy rain on June 25 as well.

Roads got submerged in many areas of the city and the rainwater also entered the Kankhal police station.

Many colonies and markets of Bhupatwala, Haridwar, Naya Haridwar, Kankhal, and Jwalapur got flooded.

Heavy waterlogging also occurred at Ranipur turning, the posh commercial area of Haridwar, while water gushed into many big showrooms. Latowali in Kankhal was flooded up to four feet.

With the roads getting marooned, the administration changed the route of the kanwariyas at many places.

It rained heavily for several hours in Dehradun as well.

A house collapsed due to heavy rain in Talla village of Pithoragarh district. Three more houses in the village were damaged. However, there was no loss of human life in the two incidents.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami spoke to the disaster management secretary over the phone late on Wednesday regarding the heavy rain in various parts of the state and took updates on the affected areas and relief and rescue measures.

In accordance with the instructions issued earlier by the chief minister, teams of the district administration, National Disaster Response Force and State Disaster Response Force have been put on alert.

Devotees travelling to Kedarnath have been taken to safety.

The chief minister himself is monitoring sensitive areas from the disaster point of view and is in constant touch with officials.

Dhami said the Met office issued an alert of heavy rain in many places.

He appealed to people to leave their homes only when necessary. "The safety of people and visitors coming to the state is our top priority."