At least 14 people were killed and more than 150 disappeared after a flash flood that swept through a Himalayan mountain valley in northern India, hitting hydroelectric projects and dragging workers into the sites.
The flood was caused when a glacier near the Rishi Ganga river, one of the tributaries of the Ganges, broke and collapsed in the river on Sunday morning. Images from local television showed a huge wave of brown water snaking through the valley, flooding the banks, causing avalanches and tearing down buildings.
The water ran into a small hydroelectric project, washing a dam and damaging a larger hydroelectric project that was being built downstream. About 154 people working on the two projects at the time were still missing on Sunday night, according to Mukesh Kumar, a data entry operator at the disaster management authority of the Chamoli district in Uttarakhand state, where the incident occurred .
“The 14 bodies of the workers were rescued from the river,” said Kumar. “We will know the identity of the dead and missing workers only tomorrow.”
The police assisted in the rescue effort after a small hydroelectric dam was flooded in the village of Chormi, in the state of Uttarakhand, on February 7.
Photograph:
Reuters
Army, police and teams from India’s National Disaster Response Force helped with the rescue until late at night, which included helping to unearth workers trapped in a tunnel at one of the sites. Navy divers flew on Sunday while the Indian Air Force was on standby to assist with any rescue, the government said.
“All of our attention is focused on the rescue now,” Trivendra Singh Rawat, the chief minister of states, said at a news conference.
Hundreds of people were killed in the same state after a similar flood in 2013, when the wall of a glacial lake broke after heavy rains – sweeping through a valley crowded with thousands of pilgrims visiting one of Hinduism’s holiest temples.
After the disaster, more than 4,000 people were considered missing, although the official death toll was reduced to a few hundred, government officials said at the time.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was talking to senior officials and receiving updates on rescue work and relief operations. He announced a government fund to support families of those killed and injured in the disaster.
“India is with Uttarakhand and the nation prays for the safety of everyone there,” he said on Twitter.
—Rajesh Roy contributed to this article.
Write to Krishna Pokharel at [email protected]
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