Shimla, Aug 6 (PTI) The death toll due to flash floods triggered by cloudbursts in three districts of Himachal Pradesh increased to 16 on Tuesday with the recovery of two more bodies.
The body of Khuddi Devi (46) was recovered during the search operation in the Rajban village of Padhar in the Mandi district, while an unidentified body of a man was found at Dogri near Sunni in the Shimla district, officials said on Tuesday.
About 40 people are still missing after a series of cloudbursts occurred in Kullu's Nirmand, Sainj and Malana, Mandi's Padhar and Shimla's Rampur subdivision on the night of July 31 and wreaked havoc.
The worst hit was the Samej village on the border of Shimla and Kullu districts where over 30 people are missing.
BJP MP Kangana Ranaut, who visited the village after six days, accused the Congress government in the state of doing "nothing" to help the victims.
Some people have lost all their family members, including children, she said, requesting the state government to provide immediate relief (financial assistance) to the affected families.
"I cannot see anything being done by the state government. Not a single thing has been done here by ministers, which is inhuman," the BJP leader alleged while talking to mediapersons.
Nine bodies were recovered from Mandi's Rajbhan village, six from Rampur in the Shimla district and one from Nirmand in the Kullu district. All the six bodies recovered in Samej are yet to be identified and the DNA samples of 37 relatives of the missing persons have been taken, officials said.
According to the officials, 410 rescuers from teams of the Army, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP, CISF, Himachal Pradesh Police and home guards are involved in the hunt and rescuers have intensified the search operation by deploying more machinery, sniffer dog squad, drones and other equipment.
The hill state suffered a loss of Rs 684 crore since the onset of monsoon on June 27 till August 5. Eighty-seven people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents, as per the state emergency operation centre.