Two labourers were killed and seven remain missing after a cloudburst triggered a landslide at an under-construction hotel site in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district on Sunday morning, PTI reported.

The cloudburst had prompted authorities to suspend the Char Dham Yatra for 24 hours. The order was lifted on Monday. However, officials have been instructed to stop vehicular traffic depending on the weather conditions in their respective districts, Hindustan Times reported.

The landslide occurred around 2.12 am on Sunday near the Silai Band area on the Yamunotri National Highway, according to The Indian Express. The highway is a critical route to the Yamunotri temple, one of the four pilgrimage sites of the Char Dham Yatra.

The labourers’ campsite hit by the landslide housed 29 road construction workers. Their tents were swept away with a sudden surge of rainwater and debris, PTI reported. Twenty workers were rescued, while two bodies were recovered approximately 18 km downstream along the Yamuna riverbanks near Tiladi Shaheed Smaraka.

Those who died were identified as 43-year-old Kewal Bisht from Nepal and 55-year-old Duje Lal from Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district. Of the seven missing persons, four are from Nepal and three from Uttarakhand’s Dehradun district.

According to Uttarkashi Magistrate Prashant Arya, the landslide originated from a newly formed zone near the campsite, an area previously considered safe. “While the rubble was cascading near the hotel, the labourers’ shelter or campsite got swept away,” he was quoted as saying by IANS.

Rescue and relief efforts are underway by personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, police and local authorities, ANI reported.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for Uttarakhand on Monday, warning of extremely heavy rainfall and thunderstorms in Dehradun, Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Tehri, Pauri, Haridwar, Nainital, Champawat and Udham Singh Nagar.

Continuous rainfall since Saturday has caused rivers to swell and damaged infrastructure in the state.

A 10-metre stretch of the Yamunotri Highway was washed away and roads near Nandprayag, Bhaneropani and the Sonprayag–Munkatia trek route to Kedarnath were blocked by fresh landslides, The Independent reported.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami stated he is in contact with local officials and has directed all necessary resources toward rescue and relief operations.

Bus accident toll rises to six

The death toll from the bus accident in the state’s Rudraprayag district has risen to six after the body of a pilgrim was recovered in Haridwar, around 150 km downstream from where the vehicle plunged into the Alaknanda River, PTI reported.

The pilgrim was identified as 48-year-old Lalit Kumar Soni from Pratap Chowk Gogunda in Rajasthan.

The vehicle, which had 20 people, including the driver, on board, met with the accident near Gholthir village on Badrinath National Highway, located between the Rudraprayag and Gauchar districts, on Thursday.

The vehicle was on its way to Badrinath Dham when the accident took place. The pilgrims were on Uttarakhand’s Char Dham Yatra and had come from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

Five bodies were recovered earlier, and six people remain unaccounted for as search and rescue operations continue, PTI reported.