Toll in Leh cloudbursts go up to 132, 600 still missing

Leh, Aug 7 (PTI) Twenty bodies were on Saturday pulled
out from slush and debris in Leh town ravaged by flash floods
in north India, raising the toll to 132 even as rescuers
intensified operations in the high altitude terrain to search
for 600 missing people.
Six Indian Air Force aircraft carrying relief
material, rescue workers and doctors landed here Saturday to
provide succour to the people of the region affected by
Thursday night's cloudbursts and freak rains.
"We have recovered 132 bodies so far and at least 370
are injured. The number of missing is being ascertained,"
State Police Chief Kuldeep Khoda said, adding the toll may go
up.
Sources fear that the death toll could cross over 500
as several remote villages were yet to be accessed by rescue
teams. Thousands were left homeless.
A small village before Choglumsur, which bore the
brunt of the incessant rains, was completely wiped out as
rescue workers were looking for survivors in the mud slush and
debris.
Gushing waters flattened houses, tossed cars and buses
leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. People hit by
the flash floods were still coming to grips with the
catastrophe.
Rescuers waded through knee-deep mud to extricate
people trapped under debris of collapsed buildings.
Relief material, including blankets, dry food
material, medicine and other immediate requirements of the
affected people landed here, a defence spokesman said.
A contractor told senior state administration
officials that 150 labourers employed by him were missing from
Shyong village where he had lodged them. The colony was set up
along Indus river and the officials feared that many huts
would have been washed away in the flash floods.
"The Indo Tibetan Border Police has retrieved 30 dead
bodies. We have rescued 100 victims from under the debris
Saturday. Three relief camps have also been opened up since
yesterday," ITBP spokesperson Deepak Pandey said.
The General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF) and ITBP
are plugging the breaches on Leh Highway, he said.
The Army has been asked to give an account of local
and outstation labourers.
Authorities said that the Army had suffered losses in
Turtuk area. Some of the villages along the Chang La pass,
world's second highest motorable road, were also believed to
have been washed away in the torrential rains.
Union Minister Farooq Abdullah reached the area this
morning from Kashmir. Later two of his cabinet colleagues --
Ghulam Nabi Azad and Prithviraj Chavan -- also reached here
after making an earlier unsuccessful attempt to land.
Home Secretary G K Pillai said in New Delhi that five
to six civilian flights are likely to take off for Leh on
Sunday to bring back people including foreign tourists
stranded there. (MORE) PTI