Rain grounds IAF sorties for 48 hours

While smaller choppers including the Chetak and the Cheetah have made short trips,these could not be counted as “largescale rescue operations”,Sahoo added. So far,about 40 sorties of MI-17 and 60 of the smaller choppers have been carried out.

Truckloads of relief,including food,medicines,and fuel supplies,are lying at the airbase. Kaushik Sen,one of the student volunteers,said: “We have packed about 20 tonnes of relief. Now,we are stuck here.”

There are about 20 of them at the station,ready to chip in whenever needed.

Wing Commander Pankaj Bajaj said the state administration had sent inputs on 10-12 pregnant women stranded in Pegong. “We have been told they had managed to walk from various areas to Pegong,where we managed to land once.”

Recalling one,four-month pregnant,woman his team had rescued,a sergeant who is part of Bajaj’s four-member crew said: “We had to leave her husband behind… It is very difficult to hear over the propeller of the chopper,but she held my hand and wept all the time. I promised her that on my next trip,I will get her husband back.”

The team of eight doctors who has gone to Sikkim from RML Hospital as part of the Central government’s contingent on September 18 is incidentally the same team that had handled the victims of the Delhi blast less than a week earlier. “We have a standard disaster management team,” said Dr Mridula Pawar,head of the anaesthesia department at RML Hospital.

The C150 J aircraft procured by the Indian Air Force only last year have helped speed up rescue operations. “These were the first craft to be put into operation. We managed to transport 153.7 tonnes of relief material,” said Captain Tejbir Singh,squadron leader of the IAF’s only special forces operations team.

The smaller choppers have stopped trying to make a landing in the past two days,merely dropping food packages,to save time and make more sorties. “We never switch off the engine,since once it is off,we need at least 10-15 minutes to start the aircraft again,” WC Poornima Ranade said. “The look on people’s faces when they see some help has come is enough to keep me going.”