Rescue work over, 1.1 lakh evacuated
Seventeen days into the Uttarakhand flood disaster, the largest civilian rescue operation saw 1.1 lakh pilgrims being evacuated to safety.
On Tuesday, the last group of 150 pilgrims was brought down from Badrinath.
“All the tourist-cum-pilgrims have been evacuated from Badrinath dham. Now some locals and Nepali labourers are left who will be evacuated once the damaged roads are restored,” said S.A. Murugesan, the district magistrate of Chamoli.
With apprehension that heavy rains may erupt in the coming days, the Indian Air Force, which has concluded its air sorties, has decided to station 10 helicopters to cope with any contingency.
But a fresh controversy has broken out about the number of people who have died in these floods. On the basis of the number of first information reports filed with the Uttarakhand state government, the number of missing people has gone up to over 8,000.
But a United Nations agency states that the estimated death toll is expected to cross 11,000.
The state of Uttar Pradesh has reported that over 817 pilgrims continue to be missing from the state.
The number of dead bodies retrieved from the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh has now gone up to 32.
But little has been done to complete the task of cremating the badly decomposed bodies strewn across Kedarnath. Uttarakhand DGP Satyavrat Bansal admitted that the process of cremating the dead bodies had been postponed yet again.
“A team of health experts and trained police personnel has been dispatched to the shrine but the exercise could not begin due to bad weather,” said Mr Satyavrat Bansal.
The state administration admitted that supply of relief to affected villages continued to pose a major challenge.
As a result, 170 villages in Kedarghati area in the Rudraprayag district are facing major food shortages because of the closure of the Gaurikund-Kedar highway.
The Gangotri highway is blocked at eight points while the Yamunotri highway is also closed, affecting supplies to villages situated in these areas.
Three Central public health teams have been posted to Uttarakhand and deployed in the affected areas of Chamoli and Joshimath. Doctors have been mobilised from several states while a three-member team from Nimhans, Bengaluru, also arrived in Dehra Dun on Tuesday.
, primarily to treat psychological disorders.
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