Minor girl swept away, Meghalaya CM alerts people to be safe

Shillong: A minor school girl was swept away by a swollen stream in Umsohiong village of Mawphlang area in the East Khasi hills district of Meghalaya on Saturday.

As per reports, the incident happened when 11-year-old Pybhashisha Ryntathiang was returning from her school in Umsohiong. The district administration and other agencies, who have initiated a search operation, have failed to locate the body as of filing this report.

Informing about the tragic incident, Meghalaya chief minister Conrad K Sangma took to Twitter to appeal all citizens to be careful and stay safe as water levels of the streams and rivers in the hill state have been consistently rising due to heavy rainfall in the past days.

“Request all citizens to be careful as water levels are rising due to heavy rains,” he tweeted.

While bringing light to the extensive damage caused by the heavy rainfall, CM Sangma said that many public and private properties were severely destroyed by rainfall in different parts of the state in the past few days.

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“Heavy rains have caused landslides, uprooted trees, eroded roads and damaged roads in several areas,” he added.

While sharing a few images of the damages caused by heavy rains on his official Twitter handle, Sangma directed all deputy commissioners of the state to monitor the situation on ground by initiating proper steps and provide necessary relief to the affected people.

“All the DCs asked to monitor situation and take immediate steps to give necessary relief,” Sangma added in his tweet.

Heavy rains are likely to lash eastern and Northeastern parts of India over the next two days as the region is continuously being fed with moist southerly winds from the Bay of Bengal. Heavy to very heavy rainfall and thunderstorms are expected over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, as per reports.