Two HRTC buses had halted for a tea break at Kotpuri at night when tragedy struck. A Katra bound air-conditioned bus was hit by a boulder that came rolling from a hilltop. The bus rolled 200 metres down a gorge. The other ill-fated bus was swept 2 kms down the hill.
Apart from a 200-metre stretch of the Mandi-Pathankot National Highway (NH154), the landslide that took place after a cloudburst in Kotpuri village near Padhar in Mandi District of Himachal Pradesh around 1.15am on Sunday 2017-08-13, washed away two buses of Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC), two cars and a motorcycle. Five houses were also damaged.
Rescue operations were temporarily stalled late evening on Sunday night but resumed early on Monday (2017-08-14) morning as there were apprehensions of more landslides.
More people are suspected to be trapped under the debris, as the buses were carrying more than 60 passengers, said NDRF.
NDRF team were trying to establish an exact count of the total number of people who had been travelling and the number of people who could be trapped. As of Monday night, 48 bodies had been recovered.
Most of the victims are believed to be passengers of the two buses that were caught in the landslide. Eight passengers were on board the bus going from Manali to Katra, while the bus on its way to Manali from Chamba was carrying 50 passengers.
* Mishap And Calamity
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