Flash floods kill 130 in Kashmir
Rescue efforts were stepped up today as the weather improved, a day after flash floods sent rivers of mud down desert mountainsides in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 130 people and injuring 400 others, officials said.
Twenty-seven more bodies were recovered from collapsed homes in the remote Himalayan region of Ladakh, police chief Kuldeep Khoda said. Rescuers found 103 bodies on Friday.
Thousands of people in low-lying areas of Leh, the main town in Ladakh, moved to higher ground and spent the night out in the open, said Kausar Makhdoomi, a businessman.
As the rain stopped this morning, thousands of army, police and soldiers cleared roads and the debris from flattened homes, Makhdoomi said. The airport and some food stores reopened.
The floods also severely damaged the town's main hospital, and patients had to be moved to a nearby army hospital.
Nearly 2,000 foreign tourists were in Ladakh, a popular destination for adventure sports enthusiasts, when a powerful thunderstorm triggered floods and mudslides on Friday, burying homes and toppling power and telecommunication towers. There were no immediate reports of casualties among foreigners.
Gushing waters swept away houses, cars and buses in a 60-square mile swath in and around the town, Khoda said.
Police and soldiers rescued more than 150 people, including 100 foreign tourists, mostly Europeans, stranded in Pang village north-east of Leh, army spokesman Lt Col JS Brar said in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Leh residents, police, paramilitary and soldiers helped pull people out of deep mud and damaged homes, but rescue efforts were hampered by fast-moving water and debris, Khoda said.
"It's a sea of mud," said Josh Schrei, a New York-based photographer on a trekking holiday in Ladakh.
The mud was about 10ft high in places. "A school building in Leh was buried under mud, with just the basketball hoop sticking out," Schrei said. "The bus station in the town was washed away and the area is covered in mud. Buses were everywhere. Some of the buses have been carried more than a mile by the mud,"
August is peak tourist season in Ladakh, about 280 miles east of Srinagar. It is a high-altitude desert with a stark moonscape-like terrain, and normally has very low rainfall.
The deluge came as neighbouring Pakistan suffered its worst flooding in decades, with millions displaced and about 1,500 dead.
In Ladakh, two soldiers were missing and 14 were injured, Brar said. Khoda said at least three policemen had been killed during rescue operations.
At least 2,000 displaced people had been housed in two government-run shelters.
The floods damaged highways leading to Leh, making it difficult for trucks with relief supplies to enter Ladakh and for tourists to leave.
Professor Shakeel Romshoo, a geologist at Kashmir University in Srinagar, said the heavy rains had cut deep new channels in the mountain gorges of the region.
"It's a challenging topography with steep and unstable slopes. Water flow and velocity being very high, the flash floods have caused huge damage," he said.
