Face of Nation : A helicopter carrying relief material to flood-affected areas crashed in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi on Wednesday. The chopper was going from Mori to Moldi. There were three people were onboard the helicopter. The state is ravaged by incessant rains and floods.
On August 18, 18 people reportedly went missing after a flood in the Tons River washed away around several houses in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district on Sunday, according to reports. The Tons River has been flowing above the danger level in Uttarkashi following heavy rainfall in the past few days. Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat asked the Uttarkashi District Magistrate and Disaster Management Secretary to carry out rescue operations and provide relief material to the affected people.
Rains in the northern states claimed at least 38 lives and triggered landslides that left hundreds of people in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh stranded and several areas in Punjab, Haryana and Jammu flooded.
Indian Air Force helicopters carried dramatic rescue operations in Jammu and Karnal districts on Monday, and the administration was on alert in parts of Haryana and Punjab. Although the rainfall had subsided across the region on Monday, rivers in several parts of the region were in spate on Monday. The water level rose above the danger mark in Haridwar and Delhi and the level at Bhakra dam was a foot above the permissible mark.
Three more people were reported dead in Himachal Pradesh where heavy rains over the weekend have caused floods and landslides, increasing the toll to 25. In neighbouring Uttarakhand, the toll climbed to 12 with two more bodies being recovered on Monday. Cloudbursts have wreaked havoc in a dozen villages of Uttarkashi district, washing away houses and hectares of agricultural land.
A 16-year-old boy drowned in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah due to release of water from Kota Barrage into the Chambal. The situation in parts of Punjab and Haryana remained grim, prompting the Punjab government to declare the current flood situation in the affected villages of the state a natural calamity.
