|
|
|
|
|
Thousands still stranded in Gaurikund, Rambada, Garud Chatti
Slight improvement in power generation
|
|
|
Complete breakdown of state machinery, says Nishank
Proposed Act to make registration of hotels, travel, tour operators mandatory
Docs sent to Chamoli
Three-day mourning in state
|
|||||||||||||
|
Thousands still stranded in Gaurikund, Rambada, Garud Chatti
Pauri, June 20 In the Gaurikund, Garud Chatti, Rambada, Munakatiya and Gauri Gaon area alone, thousands of pilgrims are struggling for evacuation, as they have been stranded there for the past five days since heavy rains and a cloudburst devastated the region. Though personnel of the Indian Army, the Indian Air Force, the National Disaster Response Force, the Border Road Organisation and the Indian Tibetan Border Police are working round the clock to provide relief to the stranded people, it will take a day or two to fully evacuate them. The Army has launched a massive rescue operation codenamed ‘Surya Hope’ under which more than 24 helicopters have been pressed into service in the worst-affected areas. More than 10,000 people stranded along the Kedarnath shrine route for the past four days are being evacuated via the Guptkashi-Ghanshali-Tehri- Rishikesh road. The administration and the Army are providing food, ration, water bottles and warm clothes to them but, according to reports, these are not reaching a majority of the people. The Bhagirathi, the Yamuna, the Assi Ganga and the Alaknanda are still having high water levels with monsoon clouds hovering above. This is terrifying the disaster-hit people even more. The centre of the Sahastra Seema Bal (SSB) in Srinagar has been completely devastated due to flood waters of the Alaknanda, causing an estimated loss of Rs 100 crore to the paramilitary force. Director, SSB, S Bandhopadhyaya told The Tribune that the SSB centre in Srinagar had been evacuated in view of a flood-like situation and the unit shifted to Pauri. At present 116 SSB Assistant Commandants were being given training in Srinagar but they would now be trained in Pauri till the devastated centre is reconstructed. In Tehri Garhwal rescue efforts are still going on with the Army focusing on Pratap Nagar, Okhlakhal and Ghansali areas. District Magistrate Nitish Kumar Jha said till date more than 15,000 pilgrims had been rescued from disaster-hit regions and moved to Tehri town via the Ghansali route from where the road to Rishikesh is clear and open. Meanwhile, telecommunication services were restored in the Badrinath shrine area and nearby areas like Pandukeshwar, Guptkashi and Ukhimath last evening, bringing relief to the pilgrims and the local people. But in the Karanprayag-Pindar valley region the telecom services were still non-functional. DO, BSNL, BS Rawat said alternative arrangements were being made. He added that as OFC lines had been damaged at several places, the telecom services may remain affected in the coming days as well. Umesh Dimri, a resident of Haridwar, who was stuck in Srinagar for two days, said many of his relatives were still camping in an ashram on the Karanprayag highway stretch, as the damaged road was yet to be repaired. “I have never witnessed such a natural calamity caused by monsoon rains in the region, that too in mid June. The government should now focus on restoring normal life and activity and plan for the future to ensure proper arrangements. The government and the administration have failed to provide proper and timely relief to the affected people,” said Uma Devi, 62, a
Karanprayag resident.
|
|
Slight improvement in power generation
Dehradun, June 20 Chibro, Kalagarh and Kodri hydro-power houses of 265 Mega Watt (MW) generated power today as well. The rest of the powerhouses are still not in a condition to function. The rural belt of Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar suffered the mandatory power cuts of three hours, and smaller cities for two hours in the state. Jwalapur and its surrounding locations had a disrupted power supply due to the closure of the Chilla powerhouse. The closure led to overloading of transformers in these areas and they stopped functioning. Similarly, as the isolator developed a snag in the 132 KV sub-stations of the Power Transmission Corporation of Uttarakhand Limited (PTCUL) at Bajpur, PTCUL had to be shut down for three hours. Power supply was snapped in Bajpur and its surrounding areas for these three hours. Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited bought additional electricity for Rs 1.5 crore to meet the power crisis for tomorrow. Owing to the poor power generation following the shutdown of hydro powerhouses, the corporation has had to buy electricity from outside sources since the calamity struck the state. Today, employees of Uttarakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (UJVNL) agreed to donate their one-day salary to help the disaster victims in the state. The money will be deposited in the Chief Minister's Relief Fund. Managing Director, UJVNL, GP Patel, said even last year, the UJVNL staff had donated Rs 9 lakh to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.
|
|
Complete breakdown of state machinery, says Nishank
Dehradun, June 20 ''Several lives have been lost due to the flash floods and landslides but if the government remains a mere spectator and fails to come to the rescue of the stranded persons by providing food and medicines, the situation would worsen,''said Nishank, while speaking with mediapersons today. The minister, who returned after visiting Fata, Agustmuni, Rambada, Kedarnath, Uttarkashi, Guptkashi and Rudrapryag, said that the sanitary conditions had worsened as there was no availability of food and fuel. ''Everywhere I went people were asking for help but there was no government official to assure them. I think the government officials are hoodwinking the government by passing on wrong information. As a result, the government is relaxed and has left everything in the hands of the Indian Army,'' he said.
|
|
Tourism Dept to give free lodging, food to stranded pilgrims
Dehradun, June 20 Additional Secretary, Tourism, Sachin Kurve said the entire department machinery had been devoted to rescuing the stranded pilgrims. “We are getting information each minute about the tourists who are trapped in difficult conditions in the disaster-hit regions and giving instructions and coordinating with the departments and teams concerned to save them. The department is also keeping a tab on the rescue operations,” he added Karve said the department had also sent its employees for the rescue operations. Managing Director, GMVN, Dr Pankaj Pandey, who had been engaged in relief works at Rudraprayag, said he was sending relief material to the pilgrims and ensuring that broken roads could be repaired soon so that the stranded tourists and pilgrims could be evacuated safely. Pandey added that it was not possible to evacuate thousands of stranded pilgrims in one helicopter sortie. For this, the roads had to be repaired. He said the road from Rishikesh to Guptkashi had been repaired and vehicles started plying on it today. General Manager, GMVN, Hansa Dutt Pandey, who had gone for an inspection of the Char Dham temples, returned yesterday. He had been entrusted with the task of coordinating with other departments in the disaster control room. Hansa said, “I witnessed temples, buildings and bridges all crumbling under the burgeoning pressure of rivers. They were flowing like little toys. I also saw a few bodies flowing with the heavy current of water. The scenic locations while returning from Kedarnath appeared horrifying and spooky.” He added he had never seen such heart-rending scenes in his life and these would remain etched in his heart forever. “I also halted on the way and engaged in the rescue operations along with the Army. The Army is doing a great job in evacuating people from difficult terrains,” he said. “I will be able to relate the grievances and complaints of the victims on reaching the control room, as I have myself narrowly escaped death. I have seen death from close quarters,”
Hansa said.
|
|
Harrowing tales of rescued pilgrims
Dehradun, June 20 As Jaishree looked back forlornly at the helicopter that was ready for another flight, there was a feeling of an acute despair of never ever meeting the group members with whom they had decided to take the yatra. “All of us had booked our tickets through Shiv Gaur Travel and were on the last leg of the yatra. Little did we know that our decision to camp for the night at Rambara would prove costly. On the fateful night of Sunday, 64 members of our group washed away in the flash flood at Rambara. It was a horrific sight to see them washed away like paper boats. The thought that there bodies have not been recovered would continue to assail us,” she said. Tragedy is indeed a great leveller and who tell better than former Health Minister of Bihar Ashwani Kumar Chaubey who had come with 15persons, including his grandson, to pay obeisance at the Kedarnath Temple. “I can still hear the noise of the gushing water that came with such a force that most of the pilgrims ran inside the temple to seek shelter. I saw my relatives, including my brother-in-law, being swept away. We were able to recover two bodies and but five persons from our group are still missing,” he said. The former minister said till date there was no centralised list of missing people. “It is only armed forces and paramilitary forces that have been setting up medical camps,” said Chaubey, who arrived at Jolly Grant Airport, Rishikesh, today. Even Madhya Pradesh Culture Minister Laxmi Kant Sharma also bemoaned the absence of help desks at the airport and bus stands. “The situation is quite chaotic here. There is no precise information on the number of missing persons available at the help desks,” he said. Amid the tales of horror and destruction, Kishore Pitroda from Gujarat who was also on his way to Kedarnath did not lose hope and tried his best to help the people who were left stranded. “I was shocked at the insensitivity of the shopkeepers who suddenly jacked up the prices of eatables near Fata (Kedarnath). A small Maggi packet was being sold at Rs 100 and a musty biscuit packet at Rs 50. There were hungry people every where with nothing on them. I managed to help them financially as best as I could. But this incident was an eye-opener. There is no end to man’s greed, even in the face of a tragedy of this dimension,” said Pitroda. All eyewitnesses said there could be more than 10,000 deaths in Kedarnath as many villages had been washed away.
|
|
Spending days and nights with bodies around
Dehradun, June 20 Rawat is also organising arrangements of relief material from various sources and sending them out through motorways. Sunil Sharma, official from Pharma Roorkie, implored help from his office colleague who got trapped in Bhaironchatti with a massive group of 500 people. He said: ''My friend lost his two children in the disaster near Kedarnath Temple. He had no option but to leave the bodies of his children there and save lives of his other two children and his wife by moving further. He is stranded on a secluded cliff in Bhaironchatti which got broken and cut off from both ends. He sent me a text message, saying that they had not eaten for the past three days and were surviving with great difficulty.'' He said his colleague kept his phone switched off most of the time and opened it only to send text messages in order to save the battery backup. The signal problem also hampered the communication in that topography. Another official of HIFEED Department, Udit Ghildiyal said, he received message from his acquaintances describing their pitiable condition where they had to spend days and nights with bodies of other pilgrims who, too, got stranded with them and died because of the harsh weather and hunger. Ghildiyal is also engaged in relief operations. Sunita Chamoli, resident of Tehri, came to gather information about her daughter and her family who were untraceable since the tragedy struck at Rambara. She said her daughter called her twice on the day of the tragedy drawing gory picture of devastation around her. But after the evening, her phone got switched off and she could not be contacted. While sobbing, she appealed to Rawat to search for her daughter and her two grownup children. Rawat expressed helplessness to some extent before the grieving people, saying that thousands of people were trapped in the tragedy-struck locations and sorties were the only way to locate and rescue the stranded victims. So they had no choice but to depend on airways for the rescue operations. He expressed hope that as the weather got better and better, the rescue operations could be expedited further. He said he found it difficult to hire vehicles to send the relief material. No one wanted to leave for the perilous locations.
|
|
Proposed Act to make registration of hotels, travel, tour operators mandatory
Dehradun, June 20 These will include hotels, restaurants, eating outlets, motels, travel agencies, tour operators and transporters to provide all basic information sought by the department. The information will be used in preparing a database, which will be uploaded on the website of the department. The move will serve many purposes. According to sources, the department will come to know about the number of rooms available in a particular hotel, room rates and facilities provided to the guests. Since the Act will also give guidelines about the rate chart for rooms according to location and the standard of the hotels, it will certainly benefit tourists who are usually charged randomly by hotels. Besides, the hotels will also be directed to maintain a level of quality in food served and amenities provided. The data will also help in gathering information about the footfall of tourists at one place or the trend of tourism during a particular season. This input will be useful in chalking out plans for future, especially with regard to extending tourism to adjoining spots. In case of advance registration by tourists, the database will come handy in knowing the occupancy rate in hotels at a particular tourist place. Till now, travel agencies and tour operators have been running their businesses without any registration. There were also no guidelines to regulate their operations. Since they too have been brought under the purview of the Act, their businesses will get recognition. They too will have to abide by the common guidelines meant to promote tourism in a cohesive manner. The transporters, who are often accused of overcharging tourists or leaving them midway and not taking them to their destination, will also be penalised. The department officials admit that till now they have been receiving rough estimates of the total number of foreign and domestic tourists coming to the state. But with this Act taking shape, they will be able to give clear figures of tourist footfall in the state in one season or a year.
|
|
Rotary Club honours 9 teachers in Mussoorie
Mussoorie, June 20 Municipal Council President Manmohan Singh Mall, who was the chief guest on the occasion, presented citations and awards to the teachers namely Richa Goel from Government Primary School (Barlowganj), Sudha Sharma from Primary School (Kulri), Savita Semwal from Primary School (Kitabghar), Rashim Manral from Primary School (Kulri), Vijay Kumari from Primary School (Barlowganj), Seema Daundiyal from Arya Samaj Inter-college (Landour Bazaar), Leeladhar Joshi from Primary School (Dudhli), Kamod Sharma from Primary School Kulri and Aman Khan from a coaching institute in Kulri Bazaar. Speaking on the occasion, Mall commended the efforts of the Rotary Club and said such awards would help motivating teachers to work better in imparting education to the students from the poor strata of society in Mussoorie.
|
|
Docs sent to Chamoli
Dehradun, June 20 Dr Asha Singh, Additional Director, Health, said that teams of government doctors had been sent to Rudraprayag and Chamoli. Two teams comprising four medical personnel were yesterday sent to Chamoli from Udham Singh Nagar and Almora and another team left for Rudraprayag. “We had sent one team to Rudraprayag yesterday and more teams were sent today,” she said.
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
