Dehradun:
About 2,500 people are still stuck in the holy town of Badrinath in Uttarakhand as bad weather holds up rescue operations in the final stages. But the tragedy is not over. There is the grim chapter of thousands of missing people, of children torn apart from their parents by the fury of the giant floods that hit the hill state last week.
A three-year-old girl has been brought to a Dehradun hospital with fractures in both legs and bruises all over her little body. No one knows her name or where she is from. The child was brought to the hospital by rescue workers four days ago, but her family is yet untraced.
Doctors at the hospital say she has been crying continuously.
(Uttarakhand: A three-year-old rescued but has nowhere to go)In Dehradun too, the 20 soldiers who died in a helicopter crash while rescuing stranded people in Uttarakhand, will be honoured today. Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde will be present. Army chief General Bikram Singh too is in Uttarakhand today.
(Uttarakhand: Guard of Honour for 20 bravehearts)The sturdy Russian-made Mi-17V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force had crashed on Tuesday in a narrow valley in the hill state. On board were five IAF personnel, nine from the National Disaster Response Force and six Indo Tibetan Border Police men. 19 bodies have been recovered by commandos from the treacherous terrain in a complicated operation.
Over a lakh people have been rescued in the last 13 days since floods and torrential rains ravaged the state and rescuers hope that the weather will allow them to finish operations today. The focus then will shift to the massive task of tracing the missing people and rehabilitation of those displaced by the disaster.
(Watch: Rescued, now unwanted - story of an abandoned teenager)About a 1000 people are feared dead and 3000 are missing. An official said about 1500 roads had been washed away, over 2000 houses and 154 bridges have been damaged in the state.
In Kedarnath, the epicentre of the disaster, mass cremations began on Wednesday and continued on Thursday. DNA samples have been preserved from all bodies, the official said.
There is as yet no estimate on how many people died in the temple town. With many bodies still buried under debris, NDRF teams have been asked to assist the local administration to recover the bodies.
The union health ministry has assured that no outbreak of disease has been reported from any part of Uttarakhand, though there have been some cases of diarrhoea in Haridwar, Uttarkashi and Rudraprayag.