12 killed in Nepal landslides: police

KATHMANDU: Landslides triggered by heavy rains killed at least 12 people overnight in Nepal, including nine members of the same family who were buried alive when their home collapsed, eyewitnesses and police said Friday.

Residents of Gulmi district in the west of the country said that the nine family members, including four children, all died when part of a hillside came down on top of their home in a gorge.

In neighbouring Pyuthan district, three people were killed and two others reported missing after a landslide swept away their homes, located on the riverbank, local police official Deepak Regmi said. Scores of people die every year from flooding and landslides during the monsoon season in Nepal.

15 killed in Upper Dir landslides

DIR: Fifteen persons were killed when landslides hit a house and a shop in two different areas of the Upper Dir district on Tuesday, police officials and locals said.

They said that a landslide hit the house of Sultan in the Badran village, Kalkot area, Upper Dir, and killed 10 people, including seven children of a family.The recent spell of torrential rains in Upper Dir has made the land in this mountainous district vulnerable to landslides.

The incident, in which two rooms in the five-room house were destroyed, took place in the wee hours of Tuesday. The area is remote and rescue and recovery operation could not be launched for hours.

Kalkot is located some 80 kilometres east of Dir town, the district headquarters of Upper Dir. It has potholed roads and unpaved tracks that make quick movement difficult.Locals said the police, Levies and army personnel, along with hundreds of people, went to thespot for the recovery operation when they came to know about the incident in the morning.

Muhammad Ali, the local MPA who also visited the spot, confirmed that 10 people had died in the landslide. Police officials also confirmed the death of 10 people.Police said the house was located in an isolated area that didn’t have any road link. They said it took rescuers two hours to walk up to the spot from the road. They said army troops also participated in the recovery operation that continued for seven hours.

Bodies of eight persons had been retrieved from the rubble. The dead were identified as Aasia Bibi, Bacharom, Shagufta, Bano, Sobia, Salma, Sajjad, Abdullah, Gul Nameer and Ishaq while Gul Bacha was pulled out in injured condition from the rubble.

In a similar incident in the Batal area, Usherai Darra, a boulder struck a shop, leaving five people dead, including three students of a private school, while six others were seriously injured.Gohar Ali, Najmuddin and Irfan were among those killed in the incident. Six others were wounded. Lawmaker Muhammad Ali has asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to announce compensation for the affected families.