Five people, including three women and two children were buried alive under the debris while one man is missing and one is seriously injured in Nauthan Tok village at Jakhyali of Ghansali Tehsil after a cloudburst at Ghansali's Semalth village in Tehri District past Wednesday midnight.
While villagers were fast asleep on Wednesday night, a cloudburst occurred over Semalth village, causing a flood in the Roeesh gorge in Jakhyali. While some of the villagers were able to evacuate to safer places following the cloudburst, six people who remained inside their homes at the time of the disaster were buried under the debris carried by the raging waters of the nullah. Senior officials, teams of Health department, Disaster Management and police reached the spot nearly two hours after the disaster.
One person, Vinod Nautiyal, was rescued by the locals with much difficulty and was taken to district hospital. He was hurt badly from neck downwards and was referred to the Jolly Grant Hospital in Rishikesh for required treatment.
The bodies of Vinod's wife Mangaleswari Devi (36), and their daughter Debu (10), lacchu Devi (56), Magani Devi (55) and Ritika (13) were extracted from the debris. However, there was no trace of the village watchman Rajesh Nautiyal despite search till the time of this report being filed. The gush of water and debris also damaged nearly a dozen homes and several hectares of agriculture rains apart from killing atleast 10 cattle. Those whose homes were damaged in the disaster have been shifted to safer places.
Meanwhile, the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee president Kishore Upadhyaya and cabinet minister Harak Singh Rawat also reached the spot. Upadhyaya said that the kin of the deceased would be given Rs five lakh compensation while the injured would be given Rs one lakh assistance. The area would be re-developed on the lines of Kedarnath area, he added. Rawat said that disaster victims would receive victims on par with the compensation paid to victims of the June 2013 disaster in Kedarnath. He also assured that problems being faced in the area would be resolved on priority basis.