Wreckage of the bus carrying 22 passengers that was buried under a landslide in Negulsari in Kinnaur district , 210 kilometres from Shimla, has been found 70 metres down National Highway 5 on Wednesday morning, said superintendent of police Kinnaur Sarju Ram Rana.
The rescue operations that were halted last night due to darkness resumed at the break of dawn. “The bus was probably hit by the big boulders slid down hill with the debris,” said Rana. Teams from I Indo Tibetan Border Police, Himachal Police and Army, are carrying out rescue operations. About a 70 metre stretch of the highway was blocked by debris. The road was reopened for traffic last night. There were about 300 vehicles stranded on both sides of the road . “Three bodies of passengers were recovered from the wreckage in morning. Until last night, 10 bodies were retrieved from the wreckage till suspension of rescue operations.”
Meanwhile, Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur on Thursday said he will visit the landslide site in Kinnaur today. The CM said that the rescue operation was halted last night. It resumed in the early morning today and is currently underway. “Till now 13 bodies have been recovered from the landslide site in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and state police teams are engaged in search and rescue operations at the Kinnaur landslide site,” said CM Thakur.
News Source : Indian Express
