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Kishtwar cloudburst: Rescue ops resume, cops trek long road to flood-hit village
Kishtwar rescue operation: On Friday, the army choppers brought 74 stranded personnel back to safety and airlifted more than 3,000kg worth of relief material for the national disaster response force (NDRF), news agencies reported.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) is continuing its rescue and relief operations in the Honzar village of Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district, where a cloudburst triggered heavy rains and subsequent floods. At least 20 people are still missing in the region, according to officials.
The IAF rescued 74 of its personnel, who were stranded in different parts of Kishtwar, as well as five critically injured patients on Friday, ANI reported on Saturday morning. The IAF also lifted 3,150kg of the National Disaster Response Force's (NDRF's) relief material to the people in the area, ANI said.
The Kishtwar rescue operation is being conducted by teams of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the NDRF, the police, military, district administration, and locals. The operation took a hit on late Thursday night due to heavy rains but resumed around noon on Friday after a slight improvement in weather conditions.
The locals are demanding the constitution of a rehabilitation committee to facilitate the provision of relief and rehabilitation of the affected people, the police said. The people have also demanded government jobs to the next of kin of the deceased on an immediate basis, besides restoration of essential services like electricity, water supply, and other relief measures.
Two senior officers of the Jammu and Kashmir police, additional director general of police Mukesh Singh and Raghav Langer, the divisional commissioner, Jammu, trekked on foot for a total of 34km to get first-hand information amid difficult terrain and continuous rainfall, PTI reported. The officials personally supervised the rescue and relief operation in the remote village of Dacchan tehsil during their two-day visit to the area, the agency cited an official spokesperson as saying.
