Uttarakhand cloudbursts: Rescuers sift through debris in search of missing people

Dehradun: A day after heavy rains and a series of cloudbursts left a trail of destruction in various districts of Uttarakhand, rescuers frantically searched for the missing through knee-high debris at the break of daylight on Saturday.

Six people died and 11 went missing in heavy rains, landslides and cloudbursts that pounded Chamoli, Rudraprayag, Bageshwar and Tehri districts early on Friday.

Breached roads delayed the arrival of rescue teams comprising SDRF and DDRF personnel to the affected areas on Friday. However, with the weather improving on Saturday in Chamoli and Rudraprayag, search and rescue efforts are likely to gather pace, officials here said.

"Knee-high debris has accumulated in the Chenagad market area, where more than 10 shops and dhabas were completely washed away in the disaster. The roads are also breached.

"Our focus is to restore the road access to the affected area so that heavy machines can be moved there to clear the rubble," Rudraprayag District Magistrate Prateek Jain said. In the absence of heavy machinery, it would be too difficult to reach those hanging on to their dear lives trapped under the debris, he said.

While eight people are reported missing in the rain-ravaged parts of Rudraprayag, three are unaccounted for in Bageshwar district.

Chamoli, Rudraprayag, and Bageshwar districts reported five deaths on Friday, while the body of a 10-year-old boy was recovered from a river in Dehradun.