Journalism of Courage
The ground floors of more than 100 buildings seem to have disappeared. So has the basketball court,with only the top of the hoop mounted on the backboard visible.
Motorcycles and cars are buried under silt and debris. Troops search for remnants of boundary walls to erect fences correctly.
Three days after torrential rain,cloudbursts and flooding ravaged the upper reaches of Uttarakhand,this hill town by the Alaknanda is still trying to come to terms with the unprecedented devastation.
Rescue and relief operations were stepped up on a massive scale across the region Thursday as multiple agencies evacuated the worst-affected pilgrimage centre of Kedarnath and other areas. The death toll was feared to be in several hundreds.
An estimated 50,000 pilgrims were believed to be stranded at various places and there were reports of them running out of food and water. The government pressed nearly 50 military helicopters and more than 2,500 additional soldiers and elite para troopers on Thursday into rescue operations.
Officials said even rescue teams have been hit by food and fuel shortages that threaten to hamper operations.
The official death toll stood at 150 but Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said the number could run into several hundreds,and would be known only after areas become accessible and the water recedes.
Although there are no reports of anyone being killed in Srinagar,which is on the Rishikesh-Badrinath highway,residents are homeless as many parts of the town are under
12 feet of silt brought in by the river.
The biggest problem is that we cant remove the debris from our houses. The river has deposited 12-feet of silt and debris in an area of more than 7 kilometres. Everything is buried under the silt, Hriday Kotnala told The Indian Express.
The Alaknanda has also changed its course and now flows closer to human habitation.
It will now be more flood-prone than in the past, said Manav Visht,a resident of Shiv Vihar colony. This Alaknanda now flows in its full fury over what was once the officers training centre of the Sashastra Seema Bal. This building was located about 50 or 75 metres from the river, he said pointing at the badly damaged structure.
Sudarshan Singh Rawat,a retired employee of UP Power Corporation Ltd,was in Srinagar visiting a relative and said he had seen similar floods in 1971. No one imagined the Alaknanda would deposit so much silt and debris here, he said.
A SSB soldier said the building housing the training centre had been inaugurated about two months back.
We have lost our basketball and volleyball ground,unarmed combat training ground,short firing range,pump house,stables of our horses,underground water storage and three workshops and CPWD store. Everything has disappeared, he said.
Kirtinagar,which is across the river from Srinagar,also faced the fury of the Alaknanda.
A large number of uprooted trees carried by the flood waters can be seen piled up near what used to be the forest departments range office. Buildings of the PWD and power department nearby have also collapsed.
The forest department building was first damaged by the mighty stream of the river on the morning of June 18. Then the river deposited these uprooted trees at the site, said Girish Barthwal,a forest department officer.
With inputs from ENS Delhi and PTI
