Himachal: Search operation at cloudburst affected areas continues

Shimla: There seems to be no end to the miseries and trauma of cloud-burst survivors even after five days of the tragedy and a total of missing persons still missing after the incidents that also triggered flash floods and erasing of Samej village, bordering districts of Shimla and Kullu.

So far only 10 bodies have been recovered even as the rescue workers including army, state police, home guards, and CISF, ITBP and NDRF personnel engaged in a massive rescue operation.

The army has also deployed sniffer dogs to trace the missing persons washed away by the flash flood or having been buried under the mud-slush and debris including rock boulders.

“Approximately 45 people are still missing after cloudburst incidents at six places. Of these, 36 people are missing in Samej of Rampur, five in Bagipul, two each in Rajban of Mandi and Shrikhand of Kullu district. At the same time, till now dead bodies of 8 people have been found in Rajban and two in Nirmand of Kullu” said a senior govt official in Shimla.

He said the rescue teams have pressed sniffer dogs in the search operation to trace missing persons at cloudburst. The teams are also using life-detector devices to detect people still alive but buried under massive boulders and rubble.

There is no big success, admits officials. There are more than 300 personnel of the security forces including NDRF, Police, ITBP, Army and CISF engaged in the search operation at Samej. The state government has also started disbursement of the relief material to the affected people after the Chief Minister’s visit.

Reports said efforts are afoot also to restore electricity in the area as electric poles and power lines were swept away in the flash floods.

“It’s difficult to stay without electricity and it should be restored on priority. The Electricity department staff has started the restoration work and hopefully the supply will be restored shortly,” said Ankush ,a youth at Samej.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said the state of Himachal Pradesh has incurred an estimated loss of over Rs. 700 crore due to cloud burst, floods and heavy rainfall.

Former Chief Minister Jairam Thakur on Sunday also visited the affected families and took an assessment of the losses including the reach operation.