Expanded search underway to trace missing persons in Kishtwar village

The expanded search operation continued in this cloudburst-hit village in Kishtwar district on the seventh day on Wednesday, officials said, as Principal Secretary, Home, Chandraker Bharti, chaired a meeting of various agencies after assessing the ground situation.

The senior official is the first of the 10 IAS and IPS officers who have been directed by the Lt Governor to visit the disaster-hit area over eight days to supervise relief and rescue operations.

The death toll in the natural calamity that struck the last motorable village en route to the Machail Mata temple on August 14 during the yatra has reached 65, including three CISF personnel and one Special Police Officer (SPO) of J&K Police. Over 100 people were injured and 39 are still missing.

“The search on day seven started with early morning showers but later the sun came out and the rescuers fanned out on the assigned locations to look for the missing persons believed to be buried under the rubble or washed away in the stream,” an official of the SDRF said.

The search operation was extended on Tuesday to cover the entire 22-km stretch of the stream from Chositi to Gulabgarh, following the recovery of two bodies downstream over the past two days, the official said.

The rescue teams are working at multiple locations, especially the major impact spot near a langar (community kitchen) site, sifting through the debris using heavy machinery, including earth movers and sniffer dogs.

Principal Secretary, Home, Chandraker Bharti on Wednesday chaired an hour-long meeting with senior civil, police, Army and paramilitary officers in Kishtwar town and discussed the ongoing rescue and relief operation in detail.

The official engaged with local residents and held detailed interactions with rescue personnel and civil administration teams, besides evaluating the immediate requirements of the affected families to ensure the timely delivery of relief measures.

The Principal Secretary underscored the need for a swift, coordinated and sustained response from all departments and agencies concerned to maximise rescue outcomes and accelerate relief and rehabilitation efforts.

The flash-floods triggered by the cloudburst left a trail of destruction, flattening a makeshift market, a langar site for the annual Machail Mata yatra, damaging 16 houses and government buildings, three temples, four water mills, a 30-metre-long bridge, besides over a dozen vehicles.

The joint teams of police, army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), CISF, Border Roads Organisation (BRO), civil administration, and local volunteers are engaged in the rescue efforts.

Army engineers on Sunday built a Bailey bridge over Chositi nullah, providing much-needed connectivity to the village and the Machail Mata shrine. The Army has also inducted a couple of all-terrain vehicles as part of the efforts to intensify the rescue and relief operation.

The rescuers also conducted over half a dozen controlled explosions to blow up giant boulders hampering the search.

The annual Machail Mata yatra, which began on July 25 and was scheduled to conclude on September 5, remained suspended for the seventh consecutive day on Wednesday. However, authorities will allow a group of devotees carrying ‘Charri’ from Jammu and is expected to reach the shrine on August 21 or 22.