Authorities stepped up rescue efforts as the weather improved yesterday, a day after flash floods sent rivers of mud down desert mountainsides in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 130 people and injuring 400 others, officials said.
Twenty-seven more bodies were recovered from collapsed homes in the remote Himalayan region of Ladakh, state police Chief Kuldeep Khoda said. Rescuers had found 103 bodies on Friday.
Thousands of people in low-lying areas of Leh, the main town in Ladakh, moved to higher ground on Friday and spent the night out in the open, said Kausar Makhdoomi, a businessman.
PHOTO: REUTERS
As the rain stopped in the morning, thousands of army, police and paramilitary soldiers cleared roads and the debris from flattened homes, Makhdoomi said. The airport and some food stores reopened.
The floods also severely damaged the town’s main state-run hospital, forcing authorities to shift patients to a nearby army hospital, said Nawang Tsering, a local police officer.
Nearly 2,000 foreign tourists were in Ladakh, a popular destination for adventure sports enthusiasts, when a powerful thunderstorm triggered floods and mudslides on Friday, burying homes and toppling power and telecommunication towers. There were no immediate reports of casualties among foreigners.
Gushing waters swept away houses, cars and buses in a 150km² swath in and around the town, Khoda said.
Police and soldiers rescued more than 150 people, including 100 foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, stranded in Pang village northeast of Leh, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel J.S. Brar said in Srinagar, the main city in India-administered Kashmir.
Leh residents, police, paramilitary and army soldiers helped pull people out of deep mud and damaged homes, but rescue efforts were hampered by fast-moving water and debris, Khoda said.
“It’s a sea of mud,” said Josh Schrei, a New York-based photographer on a trekking holiday in Ladakh.
The mud was about 3m high in places.
“A school building in Leh was buried under mud, with just the basketball hoop sticking out,” Schrei said. “The bus station in the town was washed away and the area is covered in mud. Buses were everywhere. Some of the buses have been carried more than a mile [2km] by the mud.”
August is peak tourist season in Ladakh, about 450km east of Srinagar. It is a high-altitude desert with a stark moonscape-like terrain, and normally has very low precipitation.
The deluge came as neighboring Pakistan suffered its worst flooding in decades, with millions displaced and about 1,500 dead.
In Ladakh, two soldiers were missing and 14 were injured, Brar said. Khoda said at least three policemen had been killed during rescue operations.
Khoda said at least 2,000 displaced people had been housed in two government-run shelters.
The floods damaged highways leading to Leh, making it difficult for trucks with relief supplies to enter Ladakh and for tourists to leave.
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