NEW DELHI, July 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 85 people were killed and 34 others reported missing, besides 129 injured in the monsoon rains during the past 20 days in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, officials said Thursday.
The State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) confirmed widespread damage to houses, livestock shelters, government buildings, roads, water supply and power lines in the state due to monsoon fury.
Rescue teams are searching for missing people as survivors struggle with ongoing outages.
According to the SEOC report, the cumulative damage to the infrastructure during this period has been estimated at 86.2 million U.S. dollars.
Mandi district, about 133 km north of Shimla, the capital city of Himachal Pradesh, recorded 20 deaths, the highest number, with the majority of fatalities resulting from cloudbursts.
Officials have set up 17 relief camps across Mandi, where 677 people are sheltered.
Authorities said Thursday morning that a total of 204 roads in the state were still blocked, and 192 distribution transformers had been knocked out. Apart from this, 740 water supply schemes in the state stand disrupted. ■
