As rains continued to batter the UT, with mayhem seen in Jammu division today , Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday spoke with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to brief him on the serious flood situation in the Jammu region, which has seen significant damage and disruption.
“Spoke to @AmitShah ji on the phone to brief him about the situation in J&K, especially Jammu province, where heavy and continuous rains have caused a lot of damage and disruption to normal life,” Abdullah posted on his X handle.
He also briefed Shah about the ongoing disruption in connectivity, saying that efforts are underway to restore phone and data services as quickly as possible.
Abdullah expressed regret that he and his colleagues were unable to travel to Jammu due to the closure of the Jammu airport.
“I hope to be able to get there on the first flight tomorrow,” he said, adding that he is “closely monitoring the situation and in touch with the teams on the ground in the division”.
In a separate post, Abdullah also conveyed his condolences to the families of the people killed in a landslide near the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine.
“Very sorry to hear about the deaths of the pilgrims on the Mata Vaishno Devi track,” he wrote. “I send my condolences to the families of the deceased. May the souls of the deceased rest in peace.” Torrential rains have wreaked havoc across the Jammu region, causing widespread flooding and landslides that have left at least 10 people dead, including six pilgrims on a Vaishno Devi route. Many more are feared trapped.
Infrastructure was severely damaged with bridges collapsing and mobile towers and electricity poles virtually breaking like twigs.
The Himalayan region witnessed landslides, inundation of low-lying areas, and washing away of several roads and bridges.
A landslide on the route to the Mata Vaishno Devi shrine atop the Trikuta hill on Tuesday afternoon killed at least six people, while several were feared trapped. Also, four people were killed in Jammu's Doda district in separate rain-related incidents.
In the Jammu region, over two dozen houses and bridges were damaged while almost all water bodies were flowing above the danger mark, submerging a number of low-lying areas and roads.
As many as 18 trains to and from Katra, Udhampur and Jammu railway stations were cancelled, while call and mobile internet outages were reported across all service providers in Jammu and Kashmir as optical fibres got damaged due to the calamity.