A flash flood, violent and impressive images. The rescue teams were deployed on Tuesday, August 5 in a town of the Indian Himalayas affected by sudden floods and where four people died, according to the authorities.
The videos transmitted in the Muddy Waters Indian media program take residential buildings in Dharali, a tourist place in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
The waters flooded houses, swept the roads and destroy stores. “A dozen hotels have been swept and several stores collapsed,” the Prashant Arya agency of Associated Press deplored, an administrative official who added that rescuers, including the Army and the Indian Police, were still looking to disappear.
He said four people had died. Other officials have warned that the death toll may increase.
Pushkar Singh Dhami, Prime Minister of this Border State of Nepal, confirmed that rescue teams were mobilized. The Indian army indicated that 150 soldiers, sent to Dharali, had helped rescue some twenty people who survived the clay flow.
“A huge landslide hit Dharali … triggering a sudden flow of water and debris,” said the army.
“Research and rescue efforts are underway, and all available means were deployed to locate and evacuate the people who are still trapped,” said Suneel’s army spokesman Bartwal.
“Mass flow of mud”
The Indian army announced that the first rescue teams had reached the event, and that a “mass mud flow (had hit) Dharali.” The prime minister said that the flood was due to a sudden and intense precipitation and assured that emergency services were “in the war foot.”
“We do our best to save lives and provide help,” he said in a statement.
At the same time, the National Disaster Management Authority of India said it had requested three federal government helicopters to help rescue and rescue operations, while rescuers fought to access the isolated land. The authorities have not provided figures on trapped or missing.
Indian weather services had issued an alert due to heavy rains in Uttarakhand. Mortal floods and landslides are common during the Monzón season from June to September in India.
Experts claim that climate change increases its intensity and frequency. In 2013, a similar torrential downpour had cost more than 6,000 people and reached 4,500 villages in the same state of Uttarakhand.
Source: BFM TV
