KISHTWAR/JAMMU, Aug 16: A coordinated rescue and relief operation continued for the third consecutive day on Saturday in a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, where 60 people lost their lives and over 100 others were injured, officials said.
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, accompanied by Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police (DGP) Nalin Prabhat, visited the devastated village late Friday night and reviewed ongoing rescue and relief efforts carried out by the police, army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Border Roads Organisation (BRO), civil administration, and local volunteers operating in the high-altitude terrain.
So far, 46 bodies have been identified and handed over to their next of kin after completion of legal formalities. Meanwhile, 75 persons have been reported missing by their families, although locals and eyewitnesses claim that hundreds may have been swept away by flash floods and buried under giant boulders, logs, and rubble.
Among the deceased were two personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and a Special Police Officer (SPO) of the local police, the officials added.
The disaster struck Chisoti—the last motorable village en route to the Machail Mata temple—at approximately 12:25 pm on August 14. It flattened a makeshift market, a langar (community kitchen) site for the yatra, and a security outpost.
At least 16 residential houses and government buildings, three temples, four water mills, a 30-meter-long bridge, and over a dozen vehicles were also damaged in the flash floods.
