STATE TIMES NEWS
Jammu: The body of a 60-year-old man was pulled out from a river while two homes and a portion of a road were damaged here as heavy rain lashed large parts of the Jammu region on Thursday, officials said.
Though the rainfall provided relief from the hot and humid conditions, the downpour triggered landslides at several places on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway and disrupted traffic, besides submerging low-lying areas, the officials said.
A State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) team retrieved the body of a 60-year-old man from the swollen Tawi river near Gujjar Nagar, they said.
The man’s identity and the cause of death were not immediately known.
Two homes collapsed and a portion of a road was washed away in the Bhatindi locality but there was no casualty, the officials said.
The Met office said Jammu district recorded 112 mm of rainfall during the 24 hours ended at 5:30 pm while Reasi district recorded 74.5 mm.
Katra town, the base camp for pilgrims visiting the Viashno Devi shrine, recorded 72.9 mm of rainfall during the same period, the weather office said.
The heavy rain left many roads waterlogged while residents in parts of Gandhi Nagar, Nanak Nagar, Shastri Nagar, Chatta and Akhnoor faced hardships after water from flooded nullahs entered their homes and shops.
The officials said traffic on the 270-kilometre Jammu-Srinagar national highway was halted for several hours owing to a mudslide at Hingni and intermittent shooting stones from the hillocks at Mehad, Panthiyal and Kishtwari Pather due to heavy rain all along the arterial road.
Traffic on the highway was restored around noon after road clearance agencies removed the debris, they said.
Jammu city recorded a maximum of 29 degrees Celsius, more than four notches below normal. The minimum temperature was recorded at 24.1 degrees Celsius, a notch below normal, a Met spokesperson said.
The weather office has predicted wet weather for the Jammu division till August 10 with intermittent to moderate rainfall till August 5, followed by widespread rain for the following two days and scattered rainfall for another three days, the spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, the authorities advised people to stay away from water bodies in all 10 districts of the Jammu division and avoid slide-prone areas as a precautionary measure.