Promila, a local resident, recently lost everything when a room in a building she stayed in crumbled in a landslide, PTI has reported.

‘Death would have better than going through this nightmare with nowhere to go and no shoulder to cry on,’ she said. On 23 August, a landslide damaged a building near Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital (IGMCH) where she use to stay with her ailing mother. 

While narrating her plight to PTI, she said, “I live with my 75-year-old mother who is suffering from ovarian cancer and has been undergoing treatment since 2016. I also lost my job as a sales girl in a shop in Ram Nagar in the city market last week due to the recession as there were no customers.”

Further adding, she said, “I slept at IGMCH on Thursday night as there is no place to go.” Promila said he does not have siblings or a father and is also separated from her husband.

“I am desperately looking for a job and am willing to even clean and sweep as I am in dire need of money for my mother’s treatment,” she says before adding, “My mother is all I have.”

Another victim whose room was adjacent to Promila told PTI, “We could not salvage our belongings and the only thing left is the clothes we were wearing while running out of the collapsed house.”

Suman who works as a domestic help said that she lost everything in the landslide and have no money to even pay her son’s school fees. Furthermore, she said they have no shelter, no clothes and that even the books of her son studying in Class 5 were damaged in the landslide.

“Our plight is miserable but it did not attract the attention of the authorities as no casualty was reported in this landslide. What is the use of getting so many donations, if the state government cannot help the disaster victims,” she told PTI.

“We had food at a gurdwara and are shuttling between our relatives’ houses, but we have not received any help or immediate relief,” she said.

Shimla has witnessed several landslides in the past weeks with the toll in rain-related incidents in the city in the past 10 days rising to 27, which include 20 deaths in Summer Hill landslide, five in Fagli and two in Krishna Nagar.

Himachal Pradesh saw three major spells of heavy rains this monsoon. The first on July 9 and 10 led to large-scale destruction in Mandi and Kullu districts. Shimla and Solan districts were hit during the second spell on August 14 and 15 and Shimla city suffered heavy damage in the third spell on Tuesday night.

On Friday, Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu paid a visit to Anni, in Kullu district, where as many as eight multi-storeyed buildings, housing commercial establishments besides other residential buildings collapsed, causing huge loss to the private property. It was reported that 27 buildings were fully damaged whereas 87 buildings suffered a partial loss in the Anni sub-division on Thursday morning

While interacting with the affected families, he said that the State Government stands with them during this hour of distress. He also directed the administration to provide all basic amenities including food to the people sheltered in the Government Senior Secondary School, Anni, adding that it was due to the timely action of the district administration that there was no loss of life as the district administration got the buildings vacated well in time.

(With inputs from PTI)

Updated: 26 Aug 2023, 08:43 AM IST