Agencies/Srinagar
Rescuers recovered six bodies late yesterday from landslides in Jammu and Kashmir and were searching for those still buried as hundreds fled their homes after flooding triggered by heavy rains.
Police and witnesses said landslides had buried 16 people in several houses in Chadoora, the worst hit area of the state where hundreds were killed in devastating floods last September.
“We have extricated six bodies so far from the landslide,” senior state official Gazanfar Hussain said.
A police officer at the site, who asked not to be named, said the remaining ten bodies were expected to be found “soon” in rescue efforts.
Village resident Mohamed Sultan described how the ground above the houses in Chadoora, 15km west of the main city of Srinagar, collapsed without warning.
“All of them just suddenly got buried alive. Now they are nowhere to be found,” he said.
Witnesses said earth-moving machines had been unable to get close because roads had been swept away, leaving police and soldiers armed only with shovels to search for the victims.
Another local police officer speaking on condition of anonymity said there was “no hope of finding anyone alive” given the scale of the landslide.
Regional police chief Javid Gillani said 237 families had been evacuated, most of them from Chadoora, after the government issued a flood alert yesterday when the Jhelum river swelled to dangerously high levels.
One man was washed away in Pacheri village, some 250km south of Srinagar, when he tried to cross a flash flood in his car.
With more rain forecast for the next few days, authorities set up relief camps in Srinagar and urged people living near the Jhelum to move to safer areas.
Many residents said they did not trust the authorities after the floods in September killed around 300 people, left thousands more homeless and destroyed property and infrastructure worth an estimated $16bn.
Srinagar resident Rafique Ahmed Wani said he had been forced to leave his home and move in with relatives after being flooded for the second time in less than a year.
“Ever since the last flood we have been asking authorities to repair the embankment of the stream. But nothing was done,” he said.
“Now we are flooded again and had to leave our homes,” he added, calling the government “callous.”
Some complained that Srinagar’s drains had not been cleared since the last disaster, causing water to back up and flood the city again.
“My factory was not flooded the last time. But now I have 2ft of water on my factory floor. This is all because of water logging,” said Ashraf Mir, an industrialist and president of the Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kashmir.
The Kashmir government was severely criticised for its response to the 2014 disaster, with parts of Srinagar still cut off days after the floods hit and residents forced to organise their own rescue efforts.
Television footage showed furious locals stoning army rescuers and helicopters carrying relief to flood-hit areas, angry that they had been left to fend for themselves for days after the floods hit.
The then-chief minister Omar Abdullah defended his government’s handling of the worst floods to hit the state in a century, saying no one could have foreseen their magnitude.
But voters later ousted his party from power in state elections, a result attributed in part to public anger over the handling of the disaster.
In Srinagar, a worried Chief Minister Mufti Mohamed Sayeed visited the water-logged city centre Lal Chowk and interacted with traders and common people.
He assured the traders that the government would take up on priority basis providing relief to businessmen who suffered in 2014.
Sayeed announced Rs250mn from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund for the worst hit Kashmir Valley and Rs100mn for Jammu region.
