About 10 students of a government school in a Himachal Pradesh village went missing following flash floods triggered by a cloudburst on Wednesday night.
Among the 10 missing students of the Government Senior Secondary School in Samej village near Shimla, four are promising sports stars - two state-level volleyball players and other two district-level shuttlers.
Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu also visited the village and met the students of the school. The students sought the Chief Minister's assistance to locate their missing schoolmates.
The flash floods wreaked widespread destruction in Kullu, Mandi and Shimla regions of Himachal Pradesh. A senior official told the news agency PTI that over sixty houses in the region were washed away and several villages have been severely affected by the floods.
Relief and rescue operations are currently on in flood-affected areas, including Samej village near Rampur in Shimla.
Himachal Pradesh minister Vikramaditya Singh on Saturday said that around 50 people are feared dead and the official number can only be declared after completion of rescue operations.
Mr Singh also said that the topmost priority of the state government is to retrieve the bodies and restore connectivity in the affected areas.
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