Death toll in north Indian floods passes 1,000

Mass cremations of hundreds of victims of the recent flash floods and landslides in northern India took place yesterday as the death toll in the Himalayan region doubled to more than 1,000, officials said.

Hindu and Sikh priests carried out cremations in several towns across Uttrakhand state, about 400km north of the federal capital New Delhi, over fears of an outbreak of disease. The concerns arose over the recovery of bodies from isolated regions where torrential rains wreaked havoc on June 15th.

“Priests from many temples in the area will preside over the final rites of the deceased,” disaster management official KN Pandey said. Hindus and Sikhs cremate their dead.

Almost all of those cremated were unidentified. Thousands of survivors mobbed officials in the state capital Dehra Dun with photographs of their loved ones, desperate to know whether they were alive or dead. The families also blame the state authorities for not telling them of the impending rainfall and the disaster management agencies for their slow response.

State officials said the death toll could rise significantly – some say it could even be as high as 5,000 – as military personnel and rescue teams clear debris to uncover more bodies.

As of now, though, there is no clarity over the number of dead or missing, so extensive is the damage and so vast and remote the area. Even a close estimate will not be possible for weeks, officials say.

Helicopters grounded
Bad weather, meanwhile, grounded military helicopters yesterday hampering the evacuation of some 10,000 people still stranded in the hills, many without food and water.

Army personnel along with the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan border police continued to erect harnesses and rope bridges across flooded rivers to move stranded people to safety.

The unseasonal rains nine days ago led to landslides and floods in the Ganges river and its many tributaries. It washed away thousands of houses, roads and bridges and severed communication links across large areas of Uttarakhand.

Known as the Land of the Gods for its revered Hindu and Sikh shrines, Uttarakhand is a popular summer vacation destination for tourists trying to escape the stifling heat of the plains. It is also a popular religious pilgrimage site, with four temple towns perched high up in the Himalayas.

Visitors normally return before the onset of the monsoon rains in July but the unprecedented downpour this year – 400 times more than the average – caught hundreds of thousands of tourists, pilgrims and locals by surprise.

“We were saved by the grace of God,” said RK Sisodiya, who along with his family walked three days from the holy town of Kedarnath to safety. “We followed the trail of bodies because we knew they were of those who had tried to escape earlier but not made it.”

Babies delivered
There was, however, some good news as an army medical team helped to deliver two babies at the weekend in a remote mountain village. "The newborns and their mothers are in good health," Lieut Gen Vinod Bhatia said.

Floods and landslides from monsoon rains have also struck neighbouring Nepal, leaving at least 39 people dead, according to official reports from the capital Kathmandu.

The annual monsoon rains from June to September are vital for agriculture and for drinking water, but their arrival early this year caught authorities by surprise, exposing the Uttrakhand administration’s lack of preparedness.