Avalanche kills at least 24 in Indian Kashmir
An avalanche killed at least 24 people early today when it struck a tiny mountain village in India’s portion of Kashmir while most of its residents slept, sweeping away dozens of houses and leaving scores of people missing, officials said.
The slide in Branil village as well as several other avalanches in Jammu-Kashmir state have been triggered by the region’s worst snowfall in 15 years, and brought the death toll to 49 since the storms started on Friday.
More than 100 people were missing and at least 1,000 houses have been damaged.
In Branil, the slide struck shortly after midnight while most residents were asleep, said Khursheed Ganai, a senior administrator of Kashmir valley. He said at least 24 people were killed, though it was not immediately clear how many bodies had been recovered, and exactly how many people were still missing.
Much of Jammu-Kashmir remained cut off due to the heavy snow, with road and air links severed.
Indian Air Force pilots were flying sorties to bring fuel, milk and other necessities to affected areas.
Col. D.K. Badola, an army spokesman, said air force helicopters had dropped 200 kilograms of rations near the entrance of the Jawahar Tunnel, along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, where more than 100 soldiers from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police have taken shelter.
Most of streets in Srinagar, Kashmir’s main city, were completely snowed in. People were walking to work or to get supplies.
Thousands of motorists, including truck drivers, were stranded on a key highway between the state’s winter and summer capitals after it was blocked by avalanches, but improving weather today allowed rescuers to begin evacuating them.
Residents also have suffered power outages and severed telephone links.
“This snowfall is unprecedented,” said Hasan Najar, a 70-year-old Srinagar resident. “We could do nothing except watch it snowing for three days.”
In the frontier district of Baramulla, two people died when the roof of their house caved in.
In the state’s southern Doda district, four people died in an avalanche. Paramilitary soldiers rescued 40 people there, but another 10 to 12 people of that area were still missing, police officer Satbir Gupta said.
