“Will we also die, will our house break, too, papa,” my six-year-old daughter asked as the horror of the devastating rains here hit home on Independence Day. Giving a first-person account of devastation in Shimla, the PTI reporter stated: Our family had rushed out after hearing a deafening roar. There were screams, as the side of a hill, barely 100 metres from our home, slid, burying many houses and a slaughterhouse.

Our daughter was already upset at the landslide in Krishna Nagar. Two young girls from her school had died on Monday when a landslip buried a Shiv temple. But for us, the landslide nearer home was more heartbreaking.  Minutes later, when I reached the spot, people who had lost their homes were howling. A woman ran around barefoot, searching for her husband. “I can see a hand,” a man said.