SHIMLA: The 11 days long search operation finally concluded on Thursday with the recovery remaining 3 bodies from the Shiv Bawdi temple landslide site at Summerhill in Shimla after which the total death toll on this site reached 20.
A massive landslide on August 14 had swept away the temple along with the debris in the morning when it was filled with devotees busy in "aarti". With August 14 being the last Monday of "Sawan" month, some devotees were busy in arranging for "bhandara" (community feast).
For last four days, the search teams were making all efforts to retrieve the last remaining 3 bodies from the debris but without any success as the heavy rainfall was also disrupting the search operation.
Finally, on Thursday the search teams managed to retrieve the bodies of Neeraj Thakur (45) of Andri village of Summer Hill, Pawan Sharma (64) of M.I. Room, Summer Hill Shimla and his four and half years olf grand daughter Samayra. Panwan Sharma’s entire family, total 7, were killed in this incident including his wife, son, daughter in law and 3 granddaughters.
SP, Shimla, Sanjeev Gandhi said that the search operation at Shiv Bawdi temple has come to an end as no other missing person is reported as the bodies of all 20 persons reported missing have been retrieved from the debris. He said that total 58 people have been reported dead in the Shimla district so far in this monsoon season.
He said that Army, NDRF, SDRF, Homeguards, Fire and district police personnel jointly made efforts under the challenging circumstances to search the bodies under the debris.
The incident had occurred around 7.30 when the landslide right above the temple resulted in the falling of debris on the Shiv Bawdi temple and burying the temple and devotees under the debris. This temple was situated below the road connecting Summerhill and Boileuganj and the debris from the hillside covered the temple suddenly.
Big deodar trees, stones, soil and debris all fell on top of the temple.
On August 14 itself, the search team had managed to retrieve 8 bodies, while 4 more bodies were retrieved on August 15, one more body was recovered from debris on August 16, one body was recovered on August 17 and two bodies were recovered on August 18 while one body was recovered on August 19.
