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Haryana CM meets rescued people from his state
Hooda offers to rebuild shrine, villages
Army begins evacuating stranded pilgrims on foot
Border Roads Organisation (BRO) men at work to open the
Jyolikot-Almora-Karanprayag road |
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Left flays govt for shoddy relief work
Declare calamity as national disaster: Mayawati
Uttarakhand needs disaster mitigation plan: NDMA vice-chief
Ex-Chief Secy refutes claims
of rescue work
Death, destruction unprecedented
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Haryana CM meets rescued people from his state
Dehradun, June 23 Hooda also reviewed the working of the centres set up in Dehradun and Rishikesh by the state government for providing necessary help to the people belonging to Haryana, who are stranded at various places. He said thousands of people were still stranded at various places in Uttarakhand and rescue operations were being carried out at faster pace. He said with the help of the government, military and other volunteers, stranded people were being taken to safer places. Hooda said 50,000 blankets would be sent for the victims and of these, 25,000 had already been dispatched from Panipat, Haryana. He said buses of Haryana Roadways had been deployed to carry rescued persons from Dehradun, Rishikesh and Haridwar to their destinations free of cost. He said the disaster was a very painful incident and the state government was providing every possible help for the stranded persons to reach their destinations, he added. Hooda also met persons who have been provided shelter at the railway station, the bus station, ashrams and dharamshalas. Congress treasurer Moti Lal Vora and All-India Congress Committee General Secretary and in charge of Congress President's Office Ambika Soni, HPCC President Phool Chand Mullana and political adviser, CM Haryana, Prof Virender Singh also accompanied him. |
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Hooda offers to rebuild shrine, villages
Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has offered to rehabilitate
some of the villages devastated by the natural disaster in Uttarakhand. He also offered assistance in the rebuilding and renovation of Kedarnath shrine. Hooda made the offer during his meeting with Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna here today.
He said the government would provide help to rehabilitate the adopted villages. |
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Army begins evacuating stranded pilgrims on foot
Dehradun, June 23 The phase three of “Operation Surya Hope” will focus on the contingency plan for evacuating people by road from the hubs at Harsil, Gauri Kund and Badrinath. The Army Commander accompanied by senior officers of the flag rank will lead stranded people on foot and take along all people willing to walk up to the nearest road head. The operation has been planned keeping in view the weather conditions. The Weather Department has forecast moderate rains in the hills of Uttarakhand in the next 48 hours. Rains could hamper the rescue operations by air due to poor visibility in the hills. In a truly daring and remarkable search, relief and rescue operation, the Army troops have done the unthinkable in the last two days. Exactly within 48 hours of establishing a contact with 1,000 stranded pilgrims in the mountain folds around Jungle Chatti in the Kedar valley, the Army evacuated all 1,000 stranded people by air and on foot by road. Using the cliff assault technique, skilled mountain rescue troops of the Army evacuated 460 persons by foot through one of the most dangerous zones in the Kedar valley. Pilgrims were given food, fresh water, medical aid, blankets and plastic sheets at the Gaurikund Army camp before further evacuation to Sonprayag. The Army launched two columns simultaneously from Dharasu and Barkot and reached Hanuman Chetti yesterday. It surged towards Janaki Chatti and Yamunotri this morning and evacuated all stranded pilgrims from Yamunotri. Inclement weather conditions did not stop the Army from continuing its operations both with helicopters and ground troops. Army helicopters were pressed into service by the afternoon at Govind Ghat and Jungle Chatti. Evacuation was completed within a shot time due to continuous and relentless efforts. The Army also airlifted hygiene and sanitation stores and chemicals, blankets, food packets and medicines. More than 3,000 kg was transported to major rescue centres. Two medical aid centres each have been opened at Gaurikund, Goucher, Joshimath and Harsil. With the launch of Burma Bridge across the Alaknanda at Lam Bagar on the Joshimath- Bardrinath road, the evacuation of the pilgrims by foot was now possible from Badrinath to Govind Ghat. Vehicular movement is already underway between Govind Ghat and Joshimath. More than 1,300 people have been motivated by the Army to move on foot or vehicles along the 74-km stretch of road from Harsil to Uttarkashi. The landslide-prone areas will be negotiated on foot. Two administrative and logistics staging areas have been set up at Sukhi and Gangnani for the benefit of people travelling by road. It is the resolve of the Army not to rest till every stranded person is brought to safely irrespective of weather and terrain conditions. The Army and the Indian Air Force achieved a series of breakthroughs today in the rescue and relief operations in some of the worst flash flood-affected areas of Uttarakhand. All 500 people stranded in and around Gangotri have been evacuated. Barring 25 persons, all others from Gagariya on the Hemkund axis have been evacuated. Army troops, skilled in mountain rescue operations, have established contact with more than 1,000 persons stranded in mountain folds in Jungle Chatti between Gauri Kund and Rambara on the Kedarnath axis. Till reports last came in, Army helicopters had evacuated 350 persons while the search operations were continuing. Food and medicines have also been dropped. Two medical teams have now been positioned at Gauri Kund to treat patients. Besides, a composite relief staging area has been opened at Gauri Kund to provide food, water and medicines to the people. Early this morning dedicated Army teams worked tirelessly to prepare a helipad at Jungle Chatti which facilitated evacuation from one of the most dangerous and inaccessible areas of the Kedar valley. This helipad is now being improved to facilitate landing of Dhruv helicopters. The Army also constructed two helipads at Gauri Kund. It created history in the Badrinath valley today when a heli-bridge was created at Govind Ghat to transport pilgrims across the Alaknanda. Helicopters did the shuttle service from either banks of the river as the temporary crossing made earlier had collapsed. The Army operationalised the foot track between Govind Ghat and Lambagar on the Badrinath road today. Another column conducting road clearing operations from Badrinath to Lambagar successfully launched a foot bridge over the Alaknanda this evening, thus opening a foot route from Badrinath to Govind Ghat. The Govindghat to Joshimath road is now open to vehicular traffic. The Army has achieved another milestone on the Gangotri axis. It has evacuated all stranded people in Gangotri. The road is now open for light vehicles from Gangotri to Harsil. Due to a series of landslides between Harsil and Uttarkashi, the Army is now moving people using the staging area concept. Across all landslides, people are being made to cross on foot and in between any two landslides, vehicles are being used. Two staging areas at Sukhi and Gangnani have been established to provide food and medicines to the evacuated people. On the Tawaghat-Dharchula axis in Pithoragarh district, the Army is in the process of establishing a link with approximately 1,000 people in the Sobala valley and medical teams and food were sent there today. An Army column evacuated all 45 children, who were stranded at the Pindari glacier in Bageshwar district. The search operations are on to establish contact with 10 to 12 persons stranded at the Sunderdhunga glacier. The Army has so far deployed 19 medical teams led by a doctor each in Uttarakhand. A total of 45 satellite phones have also been deployed in various parts of the state to enable the stranded people to contact their families. More than 2,300 persons used the Army communication facilities to talk to their loved ones at home. The Army so far has evacuated 18,500 people and deployed 10,000 soldiers for the rescue and relief operations. Meanwhile, in an innovative yet daring move, the IAF today established an aviation fuel supply bridge at Dharasu to give a greater impetus to the rescue operations, which were severely restricted due to the non-availability of aviation fuel. The first C130J aircraft landed at Dharasu (a landing ground only 1,300 meters long) early morning for the first time despite an inclement weather. On landing the aircraft emptied 8,000 litres of fuel into an empty bowser which was airlifted from Sarsawa by a Mi 26 helicopter yesterday. With the availability of additional fuel now at Dharasu, the extraction, evacuation and rescue operations have picked up pace and the available helicopters are now able to make more trips. Besides carrying fuel to Dharasu, the first C130J on its return trip carried about 40 people and the second aircraft about 100 injured and stranded pilgrims to the safer plains of the Air Force Station at Hindan. An emergency medical centre has been set up at the Hindan station for medical check up of all arriving tourists. The first two C130J aircraft carried fuel to Dharasu while the third carried a medical team of the IAF to attend to sick people before they are moved out to a safer place. Having paved the way for the landing of a fixed wing aircraft at Dharasu, the IAF pressed its An 32 aircraft also into action. These aircraft are carrying a disaster communication equipment vehicle, additional aviation fuel, Sudan pumps for refuelling helicopters and 4,200 kg of bridging equipment of the BRO. The Mi 26 helicopter will also be airlifting the heavy equipment of the BRO to facilitate road repair and construction work. While the fuel bridging has given impetus to the rescue operations, increased flying activity in the narrow valleys is posing a new challenge to traffic management and safe flying. The IAF has inducted additional personnel to ensure smooth planning, coordination and execution of flying operations, be it the IAF, the Army or civilian operators. From morning to 3 pm the IAF made about 149 sorties and airlifted 26,700 kg of load and 1,355 passengers. In all the IAF has made 768 sorties in which 103,350 kg of load has been dropped or landed and 5,347 passengers airlifted. It has committed itself to using all available resources to speed up the rescue operations, especially in the face the Indian Met Department forecasting a bad weather in the next 36 to 48 hours. |
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Left flays govt for shoddy relief work
Dehradun, June 23 Leader of the CPI Samar Bhandari said for the first five days, the stranded “The district administration has proved a total failure in carrying out relief and rescue operations at the disaster-affected places as its officials could not handle the alarming situation. The stranded people are passing through troubled times, making desperate attempts to survive without any food and water. Hundreds of them do not have proper clothes. A large number of people have died due to lack of timely help. In this age of communication, the state government could not resume the damaged communication network for a week," he said. Bhandari expressed shock at Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna and other Uttarakhand ministers attending a function of a Hindi daily in the He said his party leaders and activists were engaged in the rescue work at Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag where the CPI has a presence. He added they were yet to visit villages. CPM state secretary Vijay Rawat said the state government had failed to manage and control the situation. The state government was busy trying to play down the disaster instead of taking steps to actually minimise the consequences, he said. It did not engage itself in taking steps beforehand on the basis of the forecast of the Weather Department, initiating urgent action such as alerting the district administrations of roping in all departments in the rescue and rehabilitation work quickly. Rajiv Kothari, spokesman for the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party, praised the Army, the Indian Air Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police for braving all odds in rescuing the stranded people from narrow terrains and cut-off areas under most difficult circumstances. He said the incompetence and insensitiveness of the state government in the time of catastrophe, which had shaken the entire nation, had been exposed through news channels before the country. |
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Declare calamity as national disaster: Mayawati
Dehradun, June 23 She had asked the Central government to declare it a national disaster. Meghraj Jaraware was speaking at a party meeting called to discuss the natural disaster that had struck the state. He said Mayawati also asked the Centre to
expedite the relief and rescue measures to bring back normalcy in the state. She directed BSP leaders and members to contribute to the rescue and relief work. Jaraware said the party had also organised a relief camp near the Rishikesh and Dehradun bus stands to help the evacuated pilgrims coming from Kedarnath, Badrinath and Uttarkashi. He added they would hold some more relief camps throughout the state wherever required. State in-charges of the party affairs Nathu Singh and Suraj Mal also expressed grief over the death of a large number of people in the rains-related disaster. They called upon the party members to do
the maximum for the victims. The meeting observed a two-minute silence for the peace to the departed souls.
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Uttarakhand needs disaster mitigation plan: NDMA vice-chief
Dehradun, June 23 “It would do a world of good to the state if the government developed a model to tackle landslides, floods and earthquakes by taking lessons from the present and the past. After the Malpa (Pithoragarh) tragedy in 1999, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had undertaken landslide susceptibility zonation (LSZ) mapping for the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. The LSZ mapping covered the entire Char Dham area and the Pithoragarh areas. Most of the Char Dham yatra route is susceptible to landslides and only carefully planned activities are advised,”
said M Shashidhar Reddy while speaking with the Tribune. He was on a visit to Dehradun along with Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. He said the sheer unpredictability of natural and man-made disasters had brought the most prepared countries in the world on their knees, but preparedness helped in minimising the damages. “The Himalayas, due to their fragility, pose a big challenge. Today floods, landslides and cloudbursts have wreaked havoc. In future, it may be an earthquake. A quake with a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale anywhere in the Himalayas would create far more destruction. We have to be prepared for it. The NDMA is working in that direction,” he said. Similarly, the implementation of the Model Bill on Flood Plain Zoning in Uttarakhand could help minimise loss to life and property in the event of a natural calamity. “The Bill has been implemented by Manipur and Rajasthan. The Bill provides for delineating areas prone to floods and prohibiting use of flood plains,” said Reddy. He also said that the National Disaster Management Authority was considering proposing a prescribed model to the states for the State Disaster Management Authority. “Earlier, the NDMA had left it to the states to implement their own models. But I think a prescribed model that looks at capacity building, mitigation and incident response system is the need of the hour,” said Reddy. |
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Ex-Chief Secy refutes claims
of rescue work
Pithoragarh, June 23 He said the administration had no knowledge of the topography where the people were stranded due to damaged routes and the shattered communication system in the disaster-affected areas of the district. The stranded people were dying of hunger, he added. “Officers deputed on the rescue and relief duty are spending their time sitting in the tehsil or district headquarters. They have no knowledge of interior areas of Johar, Darma and the lower Darma valley as routes and the communication system in these areas have been completely damaged,” said Tolia. He added the entire administration and the rescue machinery in the state were vying for tourists and pilgrims whether Char Dham pilgrims or foreign trackers and were neglecting local villagers. “Even though more than 1,000 villagers were still trapped in the Johar valley, those engaged in the relief and rescue work had claimed success after rescuing six Americans from the Johar valley,” said Tolia. The former Chief Secretary said officials on the rescue and relief duty were engaged in flattering politicians and had turned a blind eye towards the stranded villagers. He added in the Johar valley area, where seven bridges had been swept away cutting off the villages from the rest of the state, no relief team had reached there. About 1,000 villagers were trapped in the Ralam, Martoli and Milam glacier area. The disaster relief authorities today claimed to they had nearly completed the rescue and relief work in the district. Almost all remote areas had been covered from medical and relief point of view. |
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Death, destruction unprecedented
The magnitude of death and destruction caused by cloudbursts and
floods in the mid-Himalayan region of Uttarakhand during the past week points to the fragility of the mountain eco-system in the area that happens to fall in a seismically active zone.
The death of more than 1,000 pilgrims and tourists in the massive floods and landslides and the destruction of roads and buildings have again proved that increased human interference in the mountains could be disastrous. The scale of death and destruction in this natural disaster has surpassed all previous records. The state has been facing natural disasters almost every year. Despite the death and destruction which have struck the Himalayan region every monsoon year after year, the state administration has failed to come up with a concrete plan mitigate the suffering of the local people. The economy of the Garhwal region depends on the yearly pilgrimage to the Char Dhams -- the most revered Hindu shrines of Gangotri, Yamnotri, Badrinath, Kedarnath and Hemkunt Sahib. From May onwards, the portals of these mid-Himalayan shrines are opened for nearly five months for pilgrims. Over the years, with the improvement of road connectivity, the number of pilgrims as well as tourists has increased manifold. To cater to the needs of such a large number of pilgrims and tourists, the infrastructure in the shape of hotels, restaurants and dharamshalas has come up along the yatra routes. Most of these infrastructures have come up along the banks of the major rivers in the Garhwal region. Most of these infrastructures have been built without following any norms or adhereing to the earthquake-resistant measures. The massive floods caused by heavy rains and cloudbursts caused the maximum damage to such infrastructures and buildings located on the banks of the rivers. Many buildings fell like packs of cards, as swollen rivers breached their banks to engulf anything and everything that came their way. The situation became critical following the massive death and destruction. The state government found itself helpless as more than 1,700 roads in the state were damaged. Large portions of important highways were washed away by the floods waters. In the Garhwal region, with steep mountains and hills, most of the hill roads have followed the course of the rivers and have been built in the valley all along river banks. It has been found that every year, during the monsoon period, most of these roads get breached at a number of places due to floods in the rivers. There is an urgent need to look for new alignments of roads, which could be difficult to carve but should withstand the vagaries of weather. With latest technological advances, such infrastructures are possible. If such roads are in place, the impact of natural disasters could be minimised. Another important factor is the training of local people and state administration employees in disaster management. Despite tall claims made by the state government, which is the first in the country to have a separate ministry of disaster management, for the past more than a decade since the formation of Uttarakhand state, the state administration has failed during all such natural disasters. Always, it is the Army and para-military forces which are pressed into service for rescue and relief of the affected people. Since thousands of pilgrims and tourists from all over the country are stranded in the current natural disaster, the priority was to evacuate all these people. It is hoped that the Army, IAF and state government would be able to evacuate the remaining 25,000 people in the next few days as many roads are being repaired and opened. But the bigger task for the state government would be to concentrate on the disaster affected local people who also suffered. Hundreds of houses were completely washed away and hundreds were partially damaged. Roads, bridges and track routes were wiped out and the local people have to bear the brunt of the disaster in the coming days. The next two and a half months of monsoon rains are likely to aggravate the situation for the local population. - S.M.A. Kazmi |
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Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today visited Dehradun, Rishikesh and Haridwar to meet people from Haryana who have been rescued from various parts of
Uttarakhand.
The Indian Army launched the phase three of “Operation Surya Hope” today after Lt Gen Anil Chait, Commanding Officer-in Chief, Central Command, personally directed relief and rescue operations.
