Rescue Operations Enter Third Day In J&K’s Kishtwar

A coordinated rescue and relief operation entered its third day in a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, where 60 people lost their lives and over 100 others were injured, officials told PTI. 46 bodies have been identified so far and been handed over to the kin after completing the legal formalities. 

75 people have been reported as missing by their families while locals suggest that hundreds might have been swept away by the floods and buried under rubble. Union Minister Jitendra Singh, accompanied by Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police (DGP) Nalin Prabhat, visited the devastated village late Friday night and reviewed ongoing rescue and relief efforts carried out by the police, army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Border Roads Organisation (BRO), civil administration, and local volunteers operating in the high-altitude terrain.

The deceased included two personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and a Special Police Officer (SPO) of the local police, the officials said. 

The incident occurred in Chistoli at around 12:25 PM on August 14. At least 16 residential houses and government buildings, three temples, four water mills, a 30-meter-long bridge, and over a dozen vehicles were also damaged in the flash floods, PTI reported. 

The annual Machail Mata yatra that commences from Chisoti from July 25 remains suspended. "After a long, tedious uphill drive, managed to reach the site of the cloudburst disaster in Kishtwar… very late, around midnight," the Union Minister said in a social media post after the visit.

With PTI inputs