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| Friday, 25 February 2005 |
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Indian army to fly in more help as Kashmir avalanche toll hits 229 SRINAGAR, Thursday (AFP) - Rescuers hunting for survivors dug through thick walls of snow in avalanche-smothered villages in Indian Kashmir Wednesday as the army rushed in snowmobiles, nurses and doctors and the confirmed death toll rose to 229. Almost 150 of the deaths occurred in the village of Watlingo, 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of the summer capital Srinagar and situated on the edge of a large mountain, officials said. The others occurred in neighbouring villages in the Anantnag district as well as in the nearby districts of Doda and Poonch. "We have been digging day and night through snow to find survivors," said civilian rescuers Mohammed Maqbool before crawling through a hole made in the snow to one of scores of devastated houses in Watlingo. The scene was repeated in other parts of the village, with those villagers managing to get inside the houses saying it was too dark for them to see anything and asking for torches. Another villager, 35-year-old Imtiaz Wagay, said the authorities had air-dropped food packets but these had been inadequate. "We need shovels, spades and snow-cutters. We are fighting a grim battle with these," said Wagay, pointing to a broken shovel with which he was trying to dig a body out of the compacted snow. In Srinagar, India's army chief Joginder Singh told reporters snowmobiles were being rushed to the villages to take the injured to hospital, while teams of doctors and nurses were also on their way. "The Indian army will also shift nurses and doctors to the affected areas," he said, adding that soldiers from the army's high-altitude warfare and mountaineering schools were also being deployed. "We will also establish temporary camps so that people are shielded from the cold," the general said. For some villagers in Watlingo, however, the help is coming too late. "I have lost my wife, four children and mother in this catastrophe," Ghulam Hussain, 45, told AFP. Hussain said the avalanche hit early Saturday afternoon, flattening the house. "I and my father survived. I don't know how," he said. An AFP photographer who hiked four hours through deep snow to reach the village said it looked like a ghost town with houses either totally or partially destroyed. Bodies, including those of children and women, were lying outside on the snow and inside some houses. "We are burying the dead en masse. Men separately and women separately," said Raj Wali, 65, who lost his two daughters aged five and 15. "My brother and I survived as we were not in the house," Wali said, adding that every family in the village had suffered. "Every house is in mourning". Kashmir valley's top administrator Khursheed Ganai told reporters in Srinagar that 179 bodies had so far been recovered from the Anantnag district. Police said another 50 people were killed in snowslides in the neighbouring districts of Doda and Poonch, taking the overall death toll since the weekend to 229. In all 257 people have died in avalanches in the past two weeks. |
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