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| In J&K's biggest disaster ever, death toll can go beyond 500 | | 138 bodies recovered so far, over 600 still missing | | BHARAT BHUSHAN
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 7: In what has been termed as the biggest disaster ever to have struck Jammu and Kashmir in hundreds of years, several people, including foreign tourists, outstation labourers, army personnel and locals have been killed while over 600 hundred others are said to be missing in flash floods and mudslides triggered by two cloudbursts in Leh Thursday night.
While six IAF planes with relief material, 125 rescue and relief personnel of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and doctors landed in Leh this afternoon, several army jawans and over 1,000 ITBP personnel had been pressed into rescue operations, official sources said.
Among the missing people were foreign tourists and at least 31 army personnel, including three JCOs and 30 other ranks of 15th Bn of Bihar Regiment, who had not still been located. Army had suffered maximum losses in Turtuk area, the sources added.
Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who reached Leh today along with Farooq Abdullah and Prithvi Raj Chavan, described it as the greatest tragedy to have struck Jammu and Kashmir in hundreds of years.
President Pratibha Patil and prime minister Manmohan Singh Friday expressed grief over the tragedy.
An ex-gratia relief of Rs one lakh each was also announced by Manmohan to the next of kin of each of the deceased.
Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan today called up Omar Abdullah and expressed grief over the loss of lives in the Leh cloudburst, besides offering all possible help from his government, sources said.DGP Kuldeep Khoda said 130 bodies had been recovered so far and at least 370 injured were being treated in hospitals.As several people were missing, the number of dead could go up, he added. Khoda said over 2,000 people had been rescued and moved to makeshift camps since their houses were damaged in the flash floods.
Sources, however, told The Early Times that 138 bodies had been pulled out from the debris by the rescue teams so far. The death toll could go over 500 as rescuers were yet to find any clue to the at least 600 missing people. Also, several remote Leh villages, which were cut off after cloudbursts and mudslides, were yet to be accessed by the rescue teams, the sources added.
A small village near Choglamsar, which bore the brunt of flashfloods and heavy rains after the cloudbursts, was completely wiped out. Sources said the rescue teams were looking for survivors in the mud slush and debris of the damaged houses in the hamlet. Some of the villages along the Chang La pass, world's second highest motorable road, were also said to have been washed away.
Quoting a contractor, sources said 150 labourers engaged by him were missing from Shyong village where they stayed.
Army had been asked to prepare an inventory of the outstation labourers who worked at Leh.
The flood-ravaged Choglamsar was ruined badly. In many of its hamlets, houses and their occupants had gone vanished.
The area was virtually cut off from the rest of the world as the BSNL exchange at Leh was damaged and the Srinagar-Leh highway was unusable as a crucial bridge between Syong and Nemu was washed away.
Sources said even as the Leh airport suspended all operations, the runway, which was under a thick layer of mud, had been cleared.While the local radio station was badly damaged, doordarshan's studio and transmitter also suffered damages in the flash floods. Power supply was also disrupted as cables were snapped at several places.
Leh deputy commissioner T.Angchuk said Choglamsar village was the worst affected. Rescue operations were continuing on war-footing, he added.Sources said though the Druk Pema school, 15 km outside Leh town on the Leh-Manali road, was also washed away, its all the 190 students were safe and had been evacuated to a safer place.The school was also known as Rancho's school after the success of Amir Khan's film 'Three Idiots'. Amir had shot there for the film.
Two IL-76 and four An-32 aircrafts from Chandigarh, which reached Leh airport in the afternoon with 125 NDRF personnel, carried with them blankets, medicines, generators, tents, emergency rescue kits and other daily use items. The aircrafts landed at the Leh airport in the second attempt as they could not make a landing in the morning due to bad weather conditions, the sources added.
Two teams of specialist doctors and surgeons from Delhi also reached Leh with five tonnes of medicines, the sources added.Sources said IAF would be carrying the bodies of foreigners and outsiders to Delhi.
If required, aircrafts and helicopters, kept at Udhampur, Kargil and in Chandigarh, would also be engaged in relief and rescue operations at Leh, the sources added.
The DRDO chief controller W. Selvamurthy also reached Leh along with a team of experts.
He described it as a very unusual phenomenon, saying Leh was otherwise a barren land. "It hardly rains here and five years ago, there was a similar incident on a very small scale," he added.
He said the number of natural disasters had increased in the recent past and this could also be attributed to global warming and climate change.
He said a DRDO lab was studying the impact of global warming on high altitude areas.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah had yesterday visited the affected areas and made an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. He had announced Rs one lakh as ex gratia to the next of kin of each of those killed and relief to the injured.
Of the injured survivors admitted to general army hospital at Leh, 70 were from Chhattisgarh, the sources added.The Leh administration has also set up a 24 hour control room for Information. The numbers are +919906990787 and +919906990835.
.A hamlet before Choglamsar completely wiped out, six IAF planes with relief material land in Leh
.Leh radio station damaged, doordarshan's studio and transmitter too affected; scores of houses, buildings, government offices and schools washed away in flash floods caused by cloudbursts
.Rancho's school also washed away |
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