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Rain fury leaves trail of death, destruction across Jammu, 23 dead in 2 days

2 families wiped out within minutes

Early Times Report

Jammu, July 20: Nature’s fury continued to wreak havoc across Jammu division on Monday, with 13 more people losing their lives in rain-related incidents on Monday taking the death toll to 23 in the past two days. While rescue operations in flood-ravaged Poonch and Rajouri were repeatedly disrupted by fresh spells of rain, the tragedy was most profoundly felt in Poonch district, where two families were virtually wiped out in separate disasters.
In Surankote’s Lower Muran village, Mohammad Latief lost eight members of his family after a cloudburst triggered a devastating flash flood in the early hours of Sunday. Latief had stepped out of his house around 4 a.m. to move his vehicle to safer ground as heavy rain lashed the area. Moments later, a torrent of water, mud and boulders engulfed his three-storey house, burying his family alive.
The victims included Latief’s wife Noor Safia (59), sons Sajjad (16), Haqnawaz (10) and Shahnawaz (10), daughter-in-law Khalida (25), two-year-old grandson Sofiyan Yasir, relative Bano Bi (60), and seven-year-old Akram. Latief survived only because he was away from the house at the time of the cloudburst, while his elder son escaped the tragedy as he was in Jammu on work.
Before the district could recover from the devastating cloudburst, another tragedy struck on Monday in the higher reaches of Loran, where seven members of another family were killed after a rain-triggered landslide flattened their mud house.
Among the victims were Zaida Begum (35), wife of Mohammad Rafiq; her four-year-old son Adnan Rafiq; two-year-old daughter Irzaa; Shamim Akhter, wife of Rayaz Ahmad; Tanvir (22), son of Ghulam Mohammad; Irfan (22), son of Subhan Dar; and Sabina (30), wife of Abdul Majid.
The victims were buried under the debris as the house collapsed. Rescue teams continued retrieval operations amid persistent rain, with officials stating that only three bodies had been recovered by Monday evening while efforts to retrieve the remaining bodies were underway.
Officials said at least eight persons were still missing in flood-hit areas of Poonch and Rajouri, where swollen streams, damaged roads and fresh rainfall continued to hamper rescue and relief operations.
Elsewhere, the relentless rain claimed more lives in Doda district. Two persons were killed and several others injured after shooting stones and falling boulders struck a passenger bus and other vehicles at Raggi Nallah on the Doda-Bhaderwah road. The highway was closed to traffic following continuous landslides and mudslides, with restoration work underway.
The victims have been identified as Kulwant Singh and Manish Kumar.
The highway was blocked for an extended period as a couple of private cars were hit by boulders. No one was hurt in that incident.
In a separate incident in Doda’s Kastigarh area, Shiv Devi lost her life after being hit by a falling boulder near her house.
Meanwhile, rescuers recovered the body of Vikas Choudhary, who had been swept away in flash floods, from the Salani river in Rajouri town on Monday. Authorities also recovered the body of an unidentified person from a damaged vehicle and were working to establish the deceased’s identity.
With the death toll mounting and weather conditions showing little sign of improvement, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah reviewed the situation and announced an ex gratia relief of Rs 6 lakh for the next of kin of each person killed in the rain-related tragedies. He directed the district administrations to expedite rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts in the affected areas.
Officials said search and rescue operations would continue despite the challenging weather, as fears remain that more victims could still be trapped under debris or swept away by the floodwaters.