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Dramatic videos show rescue efforts as cloudburst, landslides kill 7 in J&K's Kathua
The videos showed security and rescue personnel digging people out of the slush that washed into homes
Hours after a cloudburst in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, videos from the site in the remote hilly region emerged. The videos showed security and rescue personnel digging people out of the slush that washed into homes.
At least seven people, including five kids aged between 2 and 15, were killed in the disaster in the Juthana Jodh and Ghati areas in the early hours of Sunday.
“We have mobilised rescue teams. I can’t say for sure if it was a cloudburst, but heavy rains lashed the region that inundated low-lying areas. We have deployed police, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) teams. We have informed the army and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF),” Kathua Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Shobhit Saxena told HT.
A family was reproted buried in a landslide that struck the Juthana Jodh area around 3.30 am, station house officer (SHO) of the Rajbagh police station, Ajay Singh, said. The affected villages included Jodh Ghati, Chandarh, Bhed Balore, Bagrah, Dilwan, and Hatlim and possibly more.
The overnight downpour has inundated Ghati and Janglote and damaged the railway track and national highway. Visuals of affected areas, including the industrial area, a Kendriya Vidyalaya school, the Janglote police station, railway track, and highway, were doing the rounds on social media.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah and LG Manoj Sinha expressed grief, and said they had directed the administration to carry out immediate relief.
Union minister Dr Jitendra Singh, who is the Lok Sabha MP from the area, wrote on X, “The civilian administration, military and paramilitary have swung into action. The situation is continuously monitored. My sincere condolences to the families of the deceased.”
Six of the injured were later airlifted to Pathankot in neighbouring Punjab.
The disaster in the southern part of J&K comes just days after a similar tragedy in Kishtwar in the northeastern part of the state, bordering Himachal Pradesh, killed at least 60 people.
