Landslides, blocked roads hamper Indian flood rescue effort

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RISHIKESH, India (Reuters) -Rescuers battled heavy rain and blocked roads in India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand on Wednesday, after four deaths in sudden flooding and landslides the previous day left dozens missing and an entire village submerged under sludge.

Teams of army and disaster force rescuers used heavy machinery to shift boulders in the struggle to reach the village of Dharali, where homes and roads were submerged by a flood of water, mud and rocks, media and authorities said.

The Indian Army said 70 people were brought to safety on Wednesday, while the state’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami told news agency ANI about 130 were rescued the previous night.

Rescuers used a makeshift zipline to cross a violently gushing river, while others moved rocks and mud with their hands in the hunt for those buried under the sludge, television images showed.

“The number of missing persons is unknown. However the relief efforts have continued through the night,” rescue leader Colonel Harshavardhan said in a post on X from the Indian Army.

“We are trying to rescue people and take them to safety.”

Dharali, a hamlet of about 200 in the state’s Uttarkashi district standing more than 1,150 m (3,775 ft) above sea level, is a tourist spot and pit-stop for Hindu pilgrims climbing to the temple town of Gangotri.

WALL OF WATER

Residents of nearby villages heard a loud rumble on Tuesday afternoon before a wall of water crashed into Dharali, media said.

“I heard a deafening sound like boulders grinding,” Sunita Devi, from the village of Mukha, told the Hindustan Times newspaper. “And then we saw the Kheer Ganga river turn into a monster.”

Roads to the area have crumbled or been blocked by boulders, making it tough to bring in rescue teams from elsewhere in the state, district administrator Prashant Arya told Reuters.

The floods also washed away mobile and electricity towers, disrupting connectivity, and forcing rescue workers to turn to satellite phones.

Eleven personnel were missing from an army camp in Harsil, 4 km (2.5 miles) from Dharali, after it was also hit by flash floods, the NDTV news channel said.

More troops, accompanied by tracker dogs, drones, and earthmoving equipment are being mobilised for the rescue effort, the army’s central command said on X.

Uttarakhand is prone to floods and landslides, which some experts blame on climate change.

Weather experts and geologists told media the cause of the havoc needed to be investigated in the absence of heavy rain in the area on Tuesday, adding that they suspected the cause could be a glacial lake outburst flood.

(Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by YP Rajesh and Clarence Fernandez)