|
 Both the Indian and Pakistan sides of the disputed Himalayan
region have been hit by extensive flooding in recent days, and about
450 people have been killed, with Indian Kashmir's main city of
Srinagar particularly hard hit.
"Some air force officials have reported that they have seen bodies
of women and children floating. We are making every effort to
collect the bodies as soon as we can," said Srinagar police officer
Faizal Wani.
The ferocity of the floods appeared to have caught the
administration in Indian Kashmir by surprise and has prompted an
outpouring of anger in a Muslim-majority region where a 25-year-old
revolt against Indian rule simmers.
Wani said the army and state officials were moving survivors to
field hospitals and relief camps on higher grounds. Nearly 100,000
people have been rescued by the military in the past week and some
people were seeking shelter in mosques.
Police said some Srinagar residents had been trapped in the top
floors of their homes since the Jhelum river, swollen by unusually
heavy rain, surged higher last week. The river flows from Indian
Kashmir to the Pakistan side, and then down into Pakistan's lower
Indus river basin.
Officials say 220 people have been killed in Srinagar, a city of
about 1 million people, ringed by mountains and on the banks of the
Dal lake, but the scale of the disaster would only become clear once
the water recedes.
Basharat Peer, a journalist and author of a book on the Kashmir
conflict, who is working as a volunteer in Srinagar, said the
response to the disaster had been woeful.
"It is clear case of mismanagement. Why are the basic supplies still
not made available?" Peer asked.
[to top of second column] |
"There are thousands of people searching for their families They
have no idea whether they are alive or dead. We have no clean
drinking water, no medicines and food to feed the children," he
said.
In neighboring Pakistan, 257 people have been killed and officials
said the toll could rise.
Half a million people have been affected by the floods in Pakistan
and large tracts of farmland have been inundated.
Indian authorities in New Delhi said they had been overwhelmed by
the worst flooding in half a century. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
will be conducting an emergency meeting to assess the disaster.
"We are just shocked to see how our paradise has been destroyed.
Proper assessment of the disaster is yet to begin," a senior
interior ministry official in New Delhi said of Kashmir.
(Reporting by Rupam Jain Nair, Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi and
Maria Golovnina and Syed Raza Hassan in Islamabad; Editing by Robert
Birsel)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
