Imphal, April 02 2010: Reports of widespread destruction including roofs of houses being blown away or collapse of houses and damaging properties by the storms with rains and hails sweeping across the state in the last five days pour in till today along with the tragic incident of death of a minor girl yesterday when the school building she was studying at collapsed under the strong force of storm accompanied by hailstones.

Heavy hailstorm claimed the life of a minor girl when the school building while she was attending class fell down to ground yesterday afternoon leaving over 60 students and teachers with minor wounds.

The girl of Class-III, identified as Konsam Roshini Devi, studying at GP Memorial School, Lilong Arapti in Thoubal district, a private school, succumbed to her injuries at a government primary health centre at Lilong in Thoubal district at about 2.30 pm yesterday.

Meanwhile, reports received from Thoubal, Chandel and Bishnupur districts said that roofs of as many as 500 houses were blown away by the strong winds that swept across the southern parts of Manipur last few days.

However, no human casualty has been reported so far from other places.

Reports said that around 300 houses at Wabagai area of Thoubal district, around 100 houses in Sora areas bordering between Thoubal and Chandel districts, and around 100 houses near the Loktak lake areas in Bishnupur district have been destroyed by the strong winds followed by hailstone showers in the areas.

Hailstorms continued to play havoc with people's normal life and properties the last five days in the state which rendered several hundreds of people homeless across the state.

On Monday and Tuesday, severe hailstorms lashed many parts of the state blowing away roofs of hundreds of houses and injuring some people.

A number of trees were uprooted in many parts of the state.

The damages could be extensive.

Hails and heavy rains across Manipur from Saturday night to Sunday morning had damaged houses, school buildings, mobile phone towers, electric posts apart from standing winter crops.

At least two women have been reportedly injured when a house collapsed in Imphal west district.

Reports of roofs of houses and school buildings in open places being blown away, collapse of mobile towers and electric posts, etc.

have also been received from other ditricts such as Ukhrul, Chandel and Tamenglong districts.

But there was no official figure of the extent of loss of properties so far.

Government authorities and non-governmental organisations are making hectic efforts to assess the losses in the natural calamities that struck the state.

Chandel A/C MLA Thangkholun Haokip visited places in the district where hailstorms have destroyed houses and properties worth several lakhs of rupees.

During the visit, no large scale damages were found, but roofs of several houses at various places were found blown away.

Widespread damages were also reported in Andro areas.

Around 15 houses at Yairipok Top Chingtha, five at Heirong Meetei village, 30 houses at Andro Khunjao were damaged by the hailstorm yesterday.

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