With more than 600 pilgrims evacuated on Sunday from Badrinath, the rescue operations are nearing completion in the flood-hit Uttarakhand as the remaining 400 pilgrims in Badrinath will be brought out by road and air on Monday.
The Army and IAF have already evacuated all pilgrims from other affected places including Kedarnath, Joshimath, Yamunotri and Harsil.The IAF deployed 20 helicopters and flew more than 140 sorties over the last two days to bring out more than 1,500 pilgrims including 680 on Sunday.
According to the State Government, there is no cause to worry about the remaining pilgrims in Badrinath as they have adequate food and medical care. They will be brought by road to Joshimath by the Army on Monday.
The focus is now on providing relief material like food and blankets to locals in far off places inaccessible due to damaged roads. Reconstructing infrastructure including roads is also going to be the thrust area. The other important task was to retrieve dead bodies after clearing the debris and prevent outbreak of any epidemic.
Though scaling down its aircraft deployment from next week, IAF helicopters will ferry relief material to remote areas for the next 15 days as per State Government directions, officials said here on Sunday.
Having deployed nearly 50 aircraft and helicopters when the rescue operations were in full swing, the IAF at present has stationed 30 helicopters. Starting a phased de-induction next week, the IAF will place six to seven helicopters at the State Government’s disposal for the next one month. IAF and Army helicopters flew more than 2,500 sorties since the disaster struck the State on June 16 and airlifted more than 30,000 pilgrims.
Moreover, the IAF ferried 3,24,930 kg of relief material and construction equipment. The Army pressed into service more than 8,000 soldiers for rescue operations and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) deployed nearly 3,000 personnel in some of the worst affected areas.
Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said a 200-member team consisting of officials of various departments, including police, health, animal husbandry experts and sanitation, was now on its way carrying equipment provided by the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) to both Kedarnath and Rambada to extricate the bodies from the debris and expedite the process of their disposal.
The cremation of those killed in Rambada at the foot hills of Kedarnath shrine too was likely to start in a couple of days, he said in Dehradun after reviewing the ongoing rescue and relief operations.
“Clearing tons of debris lying in the affected areas and extricating decaying bodies which may be lying under them is our top-most priority at the moment,” DGP, Uttarakhand Satyavrat Bansal said.
“34 bodies have already been cremated in Kedarnath shrine area while 55 to 60 more which are visible on the ground are yet to be cremated and the process will be taken up on a war footing by a rescue team considering the threat of an epidemic outbreak 15 days after the calamity,” he said.
On reaching essential supplies to villages, officials said many roads were breached and this factor hampered relief operations. 274 trucks carrying food grains and other essentials have been dispatched to about 16 affected locations in the worst-hit Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi districts.
On the issue of giving compensation to missing people of his State, the Chief Minister said the district authorities were on the job and compensation will be given on fast track.
According to an estimate more than 3,000 people are missing since the flash floods struck the State on June 16. “After taking into consideration all the missing person reports lodged in this State, I have been told that the number of those missing is around 3,000,” Bahuguna said. Regarding those hailing from other States, Bahuguna said they should lodge complaints in their State, he said.
“If the States confirm to Uttarakhand that people from their States had come on pilgrimage here and that these number of pilgrims should be presumed to be dead and have not come back, we will accept their version and the compensation amount will be paid to respective chief secretaries for distribution to victims of the respective States,” he said.
Facing the huge task of rehabilitation, the Chief Minister said there were more than 200 villages where there is no connectivity and these have to be rehabilitated. While construction of roads will take time, the State Government will ensure that mule tracks are ready within a week to restore connectivity to some extent, he said.