Over 50 people were feared to have been buried alive in a massive landslide on Saturday night that swept away two state run buses near Padhar in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh, around 200 km from here.
Mandi Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Kadam said the incident reportedly took place at 12.15 am on Sunday when two Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) buses, one going from Manali to Katra and another Chamba to Manali, were on their way to scheduled destinations.
Only 12 bodies have been recovered so far after daylong rescue and joint search operation carried out by the administration, police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), army and locals.
“Suddenly, an entire hillside collapsed on the buses on Mandi-Pathankot National Highway near Kotrupi in which over 50 persons got buried under the debris,” Kadam told The Statesman.
Kadam, along with SP Mandi, and the rescue team reached the spot (45 kilometres away from Mandi town) within an hour of the tragedy.
The impact of the landslide was such that around 200 metres stretch of the NH was completely swept away 700-800 metres downhill.
The HRTC bus was not traceable in the debris, while the Volvo was found badly mangled.
Police officials said Chamba-Manali bus was reportedly carrying 50 passengers and Volvo had eight passengers on board, out of which three were killed.
The driver of HRTC bus Chandan Sharma and conductor Satpal were reportedly killed in the accident.
The 12 deceased have been identified as Suruchi Thakur (Jogindernagar), Neha (Sarkaghat), Vinod Kumar (Gumma), who were travelling in the Volvo. Those in the HRTC bus have been identified as Suresh Kumar (Mandi), Pawan Kumar (Manali), Kartar Chand (Baijnath), Ajay (Kapurthala in Punjab and Khoob Ram (Kullu). In the same bus, four passengers of J&k, Babu Ram (Udhampur), Subhash Singh and Sagar Singh (Kathua) and Mandeep Singh (Bikanagar) were also among the deceased.
Eye witnesses said the number of causalities could be far more as some houses on the hill side, one bike and one car were believed to have been at the spot at the time of accident.
Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur, in whose constituency the tragedy struck, reached the spot in the morning. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh also rushed to the spot in the evening to take stock of the rescue and search operations. Leader of opposition, Prem Kumar Dhumal, also reached the spot to console the families of the victims.
The CM announced an immediate relief of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of deceased.
Directing the teams to intensify the rescue and relief measures, he said the operation would continue until the last body of victim was recovered.
He directed to assess the loss to the property at the earliest so that the sufferers could be provided compensation and other assistance.