The rescue operation to find 20 individuals missing after a cloudburst in a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar resumed Friday after staying suspended for hours together owing to raw weather, officials said.
Seven persons were spotted dead and 17 others were recovered in an injured health after the remote Honzar village in Dacchan tehsil was smashed by flash floods evoked by the cloudburst in the wee hours of Wednesday, damaging 21 houses, 21 cow sheds, a ration depot, a bridge and a mosque.
The rescue operation was disturbed by heavy rains late Thursday night and restarted around noon after slight betterment in the weather conditions, the officials said. The search and rescue operation gained momentum on Thursday after the Indian Air Force (IAF) pressed three helicopters from Jammu, Srinagar and Udhampur and made eight sorties, transferring relief load of 2250 kgs, 44 NDRF and SRDF personnel and four medical assistants besides vacating two critically wounded persons from Soundar to Kishtwar for specialised treatment.
An officer of the disaster authority said no helicopter sorties from Kishtwar to Soundar could mature since 6 am on Friday due to raw weather. The IAF had stationed an MI-17 helicopter in stand-by mode at Kishtwar since Thursday, he said.
Six squads of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) with sophisticated equipment are engaged in the activities along with other rescuers from police, Army and local volunteers, the officials said. A Meteorological department official said the weather remained overcast with light rain at certain places across Jammu and Kashmir. “Same situation presumably continues throughout the day. A short spell of heavy showers may happen at some places which may evoke flash flood, mudslide and landslide,” the official said, advising people to remain vigil and run away from vulnerable places.
