MANERI, India – Kameshwari Devi was on her way back from a temple near her village in the Indian Himalayas when a wall of water, rocks and mud tore down the mountain, destroyed her home and killed her son.
Three days after the tragedy hit Dharali village in Uttarakhand state, Devi and other residents who survived the disaster are angry that the operation to find those stuck under the debris is not progressing faster.
Officials said the flash flood killed four people and more than a dozen remain missing, but locals fear the toll could be higher.
“My son is gone,” said Devi, 52. “There must have been over 100 people buried alive in the debris and we did not receive any help to save our loved ones,” she told Reuters at a relief camp in nearby Matli village on Friday.
For two days, soldiers and rescue workers used their hands, as well as machinery, to shift boulders from roads that had turned into muddy streams to reach Dharali on Friday, finding many parts of the hamlet buried under 25 feet (eight metres) of debris.
Over two days, military helicopters rescued more than 600 people, according to a state government estimate.
Sanjay Panwar, a restaurant owner who was out to buy vegetables when the flood hit, tried to save his brother but failed.
“There could be more than 200 people who are missing and the rescue forces are only taking out the tourists. They need to save locals buried under the debris as well,” he said.
But Arpan Yaduvanshi, a commandant with the State Disaster Response Force, denied that locals were being overlooked.
“It is obvious that those who have lost their loved ones would be angry,” he said. “We are bringing back every person. We have deployed sniffer dogs, thermal cameras to find people in the debris.”
Uttarakhand is prone to floods and landslides, which some experts blame on climate change.
Vinod Kumar Suman, Uttarakhand’s secretary for disaster management, said the department had commissioned a report on the cause.
“Without a proper study we cannot conclude that it was a glacial lake outburst,” he said. “There was only 8 mm rainfall there. We have asked a team of scientists to study and tell us the exact cause.” REUTERS
