Sixteen people were found dead in Indian-administered Kashmir, with rescuers searching for dozens more missing, after flash floods swept away hundreds of tents near a popular Hindu pilgrimage site, officials said yesterday.
About 10,000 people were camped near the remote Amarnath temple, nestled in a Himalayan mountain cave, when a sudden cloudburst triggered a deluge.
Frequent whizzing helicopter sorties were evacuating the dead and an unknown number of injured pilgrims from the Baltal Base Camp to the north of the shrine.
Photo: AFP
“We found 16 bodies so far and at least 40 are missing,” an official from the state disaster response agency said.
“Security forces and all the rescue teams are looking for the missing and injured,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Vivek, a pilgrim who escaped the destructive downpour, said that some of his family and members of the group he traveled to the site with were still missing.
“We were a group of 150 and 30 of us are still stuck up there. Their phones are switched off,” he said.
The annual pilgrimage sees hundreds of thousands of people trek up for days through rugged mountain passes to reach the shrine.
Visitors pay their respects to a large ice formation they believe is an incarnation of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several senior government officials expressed their grief over the loss of lives.
“Condolences to the bereaved families,” Modi wrote on Twitter late on Friday.
The pilgrimage is being held for the first time since 2019 after being halted for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In normal times it is one of the biggest religious events in Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region disputed between India and Pakistan that has long been the site of an insurgency against Indian rule.
The pilgrimage is this year being staged alongside a huge security deployment involving tens of thousands of soldiers and police, but treacherous weather in the mountains has in the past posed a bigger threat than security issues in the restive territory.
Nearly 250 people died in 1996 when they were suddenly caught up in snowstorms that hit the area.
Heavy rains have lashed South Asia this monsoon season, with scores killed last month after flooding, landslides and lightning strikes in India’s remote northeast.
More than 100 others were killed in Bangladesh the same month when rivers swelled to record levels and inundated rural villages after some of the heaviest rains in a century.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday announced a deal with the chief of Kurdish-led forces that includes a ceasefire, after government troops advanced across Kurdish-held areas of the country’s north and east. Syrian Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said he had agreed to the deal to avoid a broader war. He made the decision after deadly clashes in the Syrian city of Raqa on Sunday between Kurdish-led forces and local fighters loyal to Damascus, and fighting this month between the Kurds and government forces. The agreement would also see the Kurdish administration and forces integrate into the state after months of stalled negotiations on
RSS