The families of workers missing from the Rishiganga hydel project site created a ruckus in Raini on Wednesday accusing the authorities of not carrying out the rescue operations properly after the sudden flood in the Alaknanda river system wreaked havoc.
While rescue efforts are on in full swing, the narrow tunnel and the massive slush that was brought down by the glacial flood are hampering rescue operations, confirm Swati Bhadauria, the district collector of Chamoli, and Yashwant Singh Chauhan, the superintendent of police.
A 13.2 MW small hydro project on the Rishiganga river was swept away in the glacier burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday, but there is no danger of floods in the downstream areas as the water level has been contained.
As many as 36 bodies have been recovered from different areas hit by the glacier burst in Chamoli district, while 204 people are still missing.
'We humans may not have not created natural disasters, but we have definitely amplified their impact.'
Three more bodies were recovered from the National Thermal Power Corporation's flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project site on Saturday taking the toll in the February 7 glacial disaster in Uttarakhand to 65, officials said.
At the devastated Tapovan power project site rescuers worked nonstop even as the odds of finding the trapped workers alive seemed slim.
The temporary water body was formed after sediments that the catastrophic flash flood earlier this month brought down, blocking the mouth of a stream that joins the Rishiganga river.
Uttarakhand Director-General of Police Ashok Kumar informed that 168 people are still missing following the glacier burst.
According to the information received from the disaster control room yesterday, one dead body was recovered from Srinagar Chauras and one from Kirti Nagar. Of the 206 missing, 70 bodies and 29 human organs have been recovered so far.
Missing reports of 205 persons have been registered at Joshimath police station so far.
Each disaster has the same message: Learn to respect the mountains before you build tunnels, roads, and houses, notes Sunita Narain.
Besides, 28 human limbs have also been recovered from different places in the affected area out of which one has been identified. Thirty-three bodies out of the 62 recovered so far have also been identified, police said, adding the DNAs of unidentified bodies are being preserved.
In recent years, the twin demands of both religion and defence have been added to the development argument to sweep aside environmental and terrain considerations while undertaking infrastructure development in the Himalayan zone, points out former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
Rescue teams on Saturday began widening a hole drilled into an approach tunnel on the way to the possible location of over 30 people trapped inside a sludge-choked tunnel of the NTPC's Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project after a flash flood ravaged the area on Sunday.
The study suggests that climate change is contributing to such events happening more frequently, and highlights risks of increasing development projects in fragile environments.
'Cracks continue to appear in more and more houses.' 'We believe the government is not going to tell us the truth.'
Making a statement in the House "regarding an avalanche in Chamoli District of Uttarakhand", the Union minister said these inputs were based on the information received till Monday 5 pm from the state government.
The death toll in the avalanche triggered by the bursting of a glacier in Chamoli has gone up to 58 as a total of 11 bodies are recovered from the Tapovan tunnel, whereas 146 people are still missing, said Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday.
The U'khand CM appealed to people to not make the tragedy an occasion for building an "anti-development narrative"
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said saving lives and extending all help to the families of the deceased is the state government's priority.
Rescue teams on Sunday recovered 13 more bodies, including the first ones to be pulled out from the sludge-choked Tapovan tunnel where a massive operation to reach about 30 people trapped inside began after a flash flood in Chamoli district a week ago.
The move to declare those who continue to be missing in the flash flood as presumed dead has been initiated to expedite the process of distribution of compensation among the affected families, he said.
The death toll from the Uttarakhand glacier disaster rose to 31 with five more bodies being recovered, officials said on Tuesday as multiple agencies raced against time to reach about 30 workers trapped inside a tunnel in a power project site and 175 people remained missing.
Using drones and remote-sensing equipment, rescue teams intensified efforts on Wednesday to reach the 25-35 men trapped in a sludge-choked tunnel since the Uttarakhand glacier disaster three days ago and more than 170 remained missing, hopes of finding them alive fading with every passing hour.
'Geological processes occur at time scales that are beyond human imagination, but we need to understand these events.'
'The present government swears by Hinduism. But we lost three of our sants during earlier BJP regimes.'
'The 100-metre stretch from the opening of this tunnel is completely flooded with debris; the oxygen supply (through the pipes) too had gotten over and the chances of any survivors inside this tunnel are very bleak. Nobody has been able to talk to the people trapped inside'
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