Chisoti (J-K): Two bodies were recovered in this cloudburst-hit village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district on Tuesday, taking the toll to 65, officials said, as the search operation was extended to cover a larger area on the sixth day.
The day started with the recovery of a mutilated body of a woman downstream, while sniffer dogs also helped trace a lower body part of another victim under the debris of a collapsed house, they said.
Officials said that one more body and two body parts were recovered from different locations during the day.
However, the officials said the recovered parts are suspected to be of bodies that have already been recovered. The remains would be sent for a DNA test.
The rescue teams are working at multiple locations, especially the major impact spot near a community kitchen site, sifting through the rubble using heavy machinery, including earth movers, and sniffer dogs.
A cloudburst struck Chisoti, the last motorable village en route to the Machail Mata temple, on August 14, leaving a trail of death and destruction. Among the 65 dead, three are CISF personnel and one Special Police Officer (SPO) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
A total of 167 people have been rescued, and 39 were still marked as missing after a fresh revision of the list on Monday, the officials said.
Deputy Superintendent of Police, SDRF, Masoof Ahmad Mirza said four teams have been deployed to search for bodies on both sides of the stream from Chisoti to Gulabgarh, a stretch of 22 km.
“The rescue and relief operation is going on a war footing. The impact area of the cloudburst is vast, and so it is taking so much time. We have cleared a large area upstream, and now we are searching the downstream as well,” he said.
Principal Secretary, Home, Chandraker Bharti visited the site, following an order issued by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha that announced the posting of 10 IAS and IPS officers for the next eight days to supervise relief and rescue operations.
The Army’s Jammu-based White Knight Corps, in a post on X on Monday, said five relief columns of the force are engaged in the rescue and relief operations, and efforts have been intensified with additional medical teams deployed.
The flash-floods triggered by the cloudburst left a trail of destruction, flattening a makeshift market, a langar site for the annual Machail Mata yatra, damaging 16 houses and government buildings, three temples, four water mills, a 30-metre-long bridge, and over a dozen vehicles.
The joint teams of police, Army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), CISF, Border Roads Organisation (BRO), civil administration, and local volunteers are engaged in the rescue efforts.
Army engineers on Sunday built a Bailey bridge over Chisoti nullah, providing much-needed connectivity to the village and the Machail Mata shrine. The Army has also inducted a couple of all-terrain vehicles as part of the efforts to intensify the rescue and relief operation.
The rescuers conducted over half a dozen controlled explosions in the past three days to blow up giant boulders hampering the search effort.
The annual Machail Mata yatra, which began on July 25 and was scheduled to conclude on September 5, remained suspended for the sixth consecutive day on Tuesday.
However, the authorities will allow a group of devotees carrying the ‘Charri’ from Jammu to reach the shrine on August 21 or 22. The 8.5-km trek to the 9,500-foot-high shrine starts from Chisoti, located about 90 km from the Kishtwar town.
