Uttarakhand Flash Flood: 12 more bodies recovered, death toll rises to 50

Dehradun: Rescuers recovered12 more bodies from the site of a flash flood in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Sunday, a week after the disaster struck, bringing the death toll to 50, officials said.

Five bodies were recovered from the Tapovan power project tunnel, six from Raini upstream and one from the riverbank in Rudraprayag, taking the confirmed death toll in the Uttarakhand disaster to 50. Officials said 154 people still remain missing after the February 7 devastation, possibly triggered by an avalanche in the upper reaches of the Alaknanda river system.

“We are expecting more bodies as hopes are receding for survival,” admitted a top official. There is still no contact with the trapped people inside.

DGP Ashok Kumar said, “An eight-member team of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), which had gone on foot to gather information about the glacier lake about 8 km above Raini village, said that the 350-metre lake poses no threat of any flash floods as water is continuously draining out in the form of a stream”.

A surge of water in Dhauliganga and Rishiganga rivers had ripped through two hydel projects. Bodies of victims were being found at different locations by the river over the past week, but rescuers had so far failed to reach anyone — dead or alive — in the tunnel network at the National Thermal Power Corporation’s 520 MW Tapovan-Vishnugad project.