Himalayan Tsunami : Uttarakhand ripped apart. - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14258419
New Delhi: Nearly 14,000 people are believed to be missing in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand and another 60,000 continue to be stranded. While more than 150 people are reported dead so far from the "Himalayan Tsunami" in the state, officials say the death toll could be in the thousands.


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Thousands of people have been rescued but the inability of rescue teams to navigate disaster-struck areas has left over 60,000 people stranded in Uttarakhand.

According to the State Disaster Mitigation Centre, while 22,392 pilgrims have been safely moved to camps, the death toll has reached 71, with 53 persons injured and 23 missing.

Though officials say 20 people have died in Kedarnath, according to survivors the death toll is much higher.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has agreed to give Rs. 1,000 crore to the State for disaster mitigation and announced Rs.2 lakh for the families of the dead and Rs. 50,000 for the injured.Kalyan Singh from Rajasthan’s Karauli district, who lost his wife at Kedarnath, recounted that on Monday the height of the swollen river could be that of a double-storey building. He was rescued on Tuesday evening.

Another survivor said people stranded on hilltops in Kedarnath had not received any food or water since Monday morning.

It will take one year to clear the slush: CM

“Kedarnath shrine is safe but it is under a lot of slush,” said Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, adding it would require at least one year to clear the slush. “The shrine will remain out of bounds for pilgrims for one year,” the Chief Minister said. Located in the Himalayas at a height of 3584 metres near the Chorabari glacier, the temple is a popular destination for Hindu pilgrims from all over the world.

Sources told The Hindu that people have been starving for four days now at Gaurikund and Munkatia, which is about 3 km from Gaurikund. Helicopters are airdropping the food aimlessly and people suffering from diabetes and heart problems do not have access to healthcare services. The weather has improved as rains have stopped at many places.

Raj Kishore Trivedi, a shopkeeper from Kedarnath, was admitted to the Doon Hospital in Dehradun with a broken leg on Tuesday evening. His shop was washed away early Monday morning in an avalanche of debris and water from a glacier that collapsed heaping destruction on the Kedarnath temple and the surrounding valley.

Indresh Mekhuri from Chamoli district, who visited Govindghat on Wednesday, told The Hindu: “Flash floods have destroyed more than half the market area at Govindghat. For two days the stranded pilgrims there were without food. Only today they ate after digging and drying some ration from the debris-laden gurdwara.”

According to him, hundreds of pilgrims are stranded at Govindghat and around 200 pilgrims on the other side of the river have not been rescued as a bridge has collapsed.

‘This was inevitable’

Uttarkashi residents complained that the destruction was inevitable as in almost 11 months since the last flash floods in August 2012, the government had not completed the pending construction work.

Reacting to this, Uttarakhand Disaster Management and Mitigation Centre Section Officer Pradeep Shukla said: “The construction started only a few months ago after the process of issuing tenders was over. The government can be called slow in this regard as it always receives enough money to mitigate disaster.”

He told The Hindu that more than 80 per cent of the funds allotted under the National Disaster Response Fund , the National Calamity Relief Fund and the State Disaster Response Fund were utilised by the Uttarakhand government almost every year. In 2012, the Centre gave an extra Rs.72 crore to the State government to restore the disaster-hit areas. However, this fund was not used for construction in areas where it was needed the most, he said.



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Latest :

Rescue operations in Uttarakhand, hit until Thursday afternoon as helicopters faced bad weather, are now expected to speed up, as 16 roads that were blocked across the State were declared open on Thursday. They include roads reaching Guptkashi in Rudraprayag district and Joshimath in Chamoli district, which are very crucial routes for rescue operations.

According to the Border Roads Organisation, National Highway 94 from Rishikesh to Dharasu and National Highway 108 from Dharasu to Gangotri (up to 30 km) were also declared open for light vehicles.

Rakesh Sharma, Principle Secretary (Industries), said, “Going beyond Rudraprayag and Joshimath would be impossible for the next six months or even a year.”

Until Thursday evening, the number of deaths noted was 105, with an equal number of people injured, said Bhaskar Joshi, Secretary, Uttarakhand Disaster Mitigation Centre. However, the administration predicts a ‘shocking figure’ on the number of deaths once the survey of all the disaster-hit areas in the State is complete.

According to the centre, while 50,422 pilgrims are still stranded, 33,192 were rescued by helicopters.

Of the pilgrims stranded in Chamoli, Rudraprayag, and Uttarkashi districts, rescuing those stranded in Kedarnath and the surrounding valley is a priority as they had no access to food. Vacating pilgrims from Guptkashi and Gangotri were the next priorities as food and other material were sent to these places. Rescue operation at Badrinath would start on Saturday. Personnel on helicopters have been instructed to rescue the elderly, women and children first.

Mr. Joshi told The Hindu that of the 26 helicopters operated on Thursday, 14 rescued people from Kedarnath.



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Finally a famous shiva's statue that's no more now.

Image

India apparantly ready to take over the world and doesn't even had a basic disaster management program in its most disaster prone area. The death tolls is in thousands now and no one have a clear picture exactly how much damage this flooding has caused.
#14258704
India floods: Death toll in Uttarakhand 'passes 500'

The death toll from flooding and landslides following heavy monsoon rains in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand has passed 500.

The state's Chief Minister, Vijay Bahuguna, said 556 bodies had been seen floating or buried in "slush", and that the army was working to recover them.

The charity Action Aid says 5,000 people are missing in the area.

Many of those stranded in the mountainous region are Hindu pilgrims visiting local shrines.

The worst affected area is around the holy town of Kedarnath.

The Indian Army is leading rescue efforts. The authorities say troops have yet to reach some remote mountain areas.

Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said more than 33,000 pilgrims had been rescued in the past few days, but at least 50,000 people were still stranded.

Earlier on Friday, 40 bodies were recovered from the river Ganges in the temple town of Haridwar, according to local police official Rajiv Swaroop.

Haridwar is downstream from the region where heavy rains on Sunday night triggered flash floods and landslides.

Flood-related deaths have also been reported in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh states and neighbouring Nepal.

The monsoon season generally lasts from June to September, bringing rain which is critical to farming, but this year the rain in the north of India and parts of Nepal has been far heavier than usual.
'Shocked'

State Agriculture Minister Harak Singh Rawat, who had visited the Kedarnath area, described the floods as the "worst tragedy of the millennium".

"It will take us at least five years to recover from the extensive damages caused to the entire infrastructure network in the Kedarnath area which is the worst affected," the Press Trust of India quoted him as saying.

Mr Rawat said he was "shocked" to see the extent of the damage caused to the buildings and area adjoining the shrine.

"The centre of faith has turned into a burial ground. Bodies are scattered in the area. Only the sanctum sanctorum is intact," he added.

Officials say the rains in Uttarakhand have been the heaviest in 60 years and the floods have flattened hotels and homes and washed away roads and dozens of bridges.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the situation there as "distressing" and announced a 10bn rupee ($170m; £127m) aid package for the state.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23007121
#14263921
That's a powerful image for many reasons, Fuser. I very much hope you don't have any loved ones or friends up in that region.

It's really a terrible shame what is happening there, and it is still ongoing. Last I heard, the Indian air force was being consistently thwarted in its rescue attempts as a result of no break in the atrocious weather.


Indian lawmaker says flooding death toll could reach 10,000

DEHRADUN, India, June 30 (UPI) -- A state legislative leader said Saturday the death toll from recent flooding in northern India may reach 10,000, a claim denounced by a government official.

"No one can give exact death figures but after traveling to different disaster-affected areas and [based on] information gathered from victims and other locals of the area I would say that death toll is around 10,000," Govind Singh Kunjwal, speaker of the Uttarakhand state assembly, told the Hindustan Times.

Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna, who has pegged the death toll at more than 1,000 people, said Kunjwal is wrong, though he conceded the figure may rise once he flood debris is cleaned up. .

State Relief Minister Yashpal Arya had said a week ago the total number of people killed could reach 5,000, rankling some upper-level government officials, the Times said.

"The figure as of now stands at around 1,000," national Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told the Times in a phone interview. "It could go up after the clearance of debris at Kedarnath and other places."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/06/30/Indian-lawmaker-says-flooding-death-toll-could-reach-10000/UPI-56691372567186/

#14263978
FRS wrote:That's a powerful image for many reasons, Fuser. I very much hope you don't have any loved ones or friends up in that region.


Thanks for your concern FRS and yes we all are fine.

oppose_obama wrote:What's 10,000 of 1 billion? I never understand people who criticize a state that is ravaged by a natural event, out of ones control. Force of nature > governments


Only that this crisis wouldn't had been this severe. Government failed to set up any disaster managemnt program in the region even when it was a disaster prone area and many smaller incidents had happened over there coupled with the fact that this crisis is also a result of utter disregard for ecological balance of the region.
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