2 labourers dead in landslide in Dharchula

Pithoragarh: Two people, including a woman, were

killed

in a landslide near the construction site of Tawaghat-Lipulekh Road in Dharchula tehsil on Thursday. The Border Roads Organization (BRO) is building the 82-km long Tawaghat-Lipulekh Road.

SDM (Dharchula) R K Pandey said that the labourers were working on the stretch between Lakhanpur and Garbhdhar. They were cleaning the debris after road cutting when boulders rained on them causing heavy injuries.” Police and the State Disaster Response Force carried out rescue operations at the site and recovered the bodies.

The victims were identified as Durga Devi (45) from Pangla village in Dharchula and Bhagwan Datt from Nepal.

Local residents alleged that the BRO was not following norms while road cutting and was blasting the mountain, thereby weakening it. The SDM said that the BRO has claimed that no road cutting work was carried out on Thursday and that all construction work is according to norms.

This comes a week after eight labourers were killed in a landslide near the construction site of Char Dham all-weather road in Rudraprayag district. Some of the workers alleged that the landslide was “man-made” and had occurred as the mountain was being cut to widen the road.