Rocks slide from Kargil hillock, topple homes, 5 die

Five people, including three children, were killed and an equal number injured when huge pieces of rock slid from a hillock and fell on two houses in in Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir today.

The rockslide, triggered by heavy snowing, occurred in village Garkone in Batalik sector in Kargil, a official of the disaster management cell said.

The two residential houses came crashing down when the rocks fell on them, he said.

The dead, three of them women, and the injured were all relatives, the official said.

Five people, trapped under the debris, were rescued and admitted to the district hospital in Kargil, he said.

The rescue operations were carried out by the civil administration and the army.