Flood alerts issued in Kashmir as rivers cross danger mark

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Authorities in Kashmir issued alerts and asked people to move to higher ground Monday after heavy rain flooded several parts of the Himalayan region.

Hundreds of people were evacuated as the Jhelum River rose to dangerous levels in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Officials ordered people living along the banks of the river to move to relief camps set up in government buildings and schools.

Police said two houses partially sank into the ground in Budgam district and efforts were underway to rescue more than a dozen people trapped inside.

The houses were covered by huge piles of mud after the area was hit by a landslide, said Manoj Pandit, a police spokesman.

As floodwaters entered parts of the city, many patients were moved from Srinagar's main SKIMS Medical College Hospital to other hospitals in safer places.

"Last year this hospital was the first to get submerged when floods hit Kashmir. We don't want to take any risk this time," said Farooq Lone, a deputy commissioner of police.

Police said several key highways, including the main one linking Srinagar with Jammu district, were closed in some areas due to landslides.

In the Pakistan-administered part of Kashmir, authorities warned residents to move to safer places after the Neelum River rose following heavy rain Sunday.

"The rain caused landslides on Sunday. In some of the areas, roads were partially damaged because of it, but the situation is normal now," said Akram Suhail, a senior official at the Disaster Management Authority in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

No casualties were immediately reported, Suhail said.

More than 600 people died in Kashmir in flash floods in September in the worst flooding in the region in half a century.

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Associated Press writer Roshan Mughal in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.