Flash floods and landslides unleashed by early monsoon rains have killed at least 560 people in northern India and left tens of thousands missing, officials said on yesterday, with the death toll expected to rise significantly.
Houses and small apartment blocks on the banks of the Ganges, India’s longest river and sacred to Hindus, have toppled into the rushing, swollen waters and been swept away with cars and trucks.
“It has been a horrifying experience,” said Tulika Srivastava, a visitor from the northern Indian city of Lucknow, who has been stranded with her 80-year-old mother in the key pilgrimage town of Rudraprayag since last week.
Thousands of military servicemen are involved in rescue operations, with air force helicopters plucking survivors, many of them Hindu pilgrims and tourists, from the foothills of the Himalayas.
About 33,000 people had been rescued so far this week, the home ministry said. Railways were running special trains from the devastated areas to take people home. “Whatever is humanly possible is being done,” Manish Tewari, the minister of information and broadcasting, told reporters.
The rains had eased yesterday but more rain is expected early next week, complicating the task of rescuers. Rain will fall from tomorrow onwards in many places in the Himalayan foothills, said a weather official who sought anonymity.
As many as 150,000 people were airlifted from the reach of the floods, said Dinesh Malasi, a rescue official at Dehradun, the state capital, with 60 helicopters pressed into the task.