(Reuters) — At least 38 people were feared dead after a landslide triggered by heavy rains submerged an entire village in Udhampur district of Kashmir, said a police officer on Monday (September 8).
Over 20 houses were buried under the landslide. The administration has recovered seven bodies while 31 people are still missing.
Additional Superintendent of police, Khalil Poswal, said rescue operations were underway to trace further survivors or victims within the debris.
“An entire village, which had 22-23 houses, came under the landslide debris. Only 13 people managed to escape. Now the toll is 38, we have recovered seven dead bodies and also we have recovered amputated body parts. We have not been able to trace 31 bodies, but efforts are on,” Poswal said.
The heaviest rains to fall on Kashmir in 50 years caught Indian and Pakistani authorities off guard, with criticism of their disaster preparedness growing on Tuesday as the number of dead hit 420 and thousands remained trapped on rooftops.
On the Indian side of the heavily militarised de facto border that divides the Himalayan region, more than 2,000 villages and the city of Srinagar were submerged.
India’s meteorological department forecast heavy rains in Kashmir last week, but the Central Water Commission, which issues flood advisories, has been criticised by Indian media for not warning the state.
A massive rescue operation led by the military was under way in both countries
Some 22,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in India, where 217 have so far been reported dead.
The flooding is the first major humanitarian emergency under new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called it a “national disaster”.
Soldiers rescued families using boats and airlifting them from rooftops by helicopter after the river Jhelum breached embankments in Srinagar, but many more remained stranded.
India has hundreds of thousands of soldiers stationed in Kashmir, manning the border and conducting counter-insurgency operations against separatist militants in a decades-old conflict that claimed thousands of lives at its peak but has cooled off in recent years.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said this year’s monsoon rains have killed more than 1,000 people in India alone.
When flash floods two years ago in the Himalayan Indian state of Uttarakhand killed 5,000 people, including many Hindu pilgrims, disaster relief authorities were again criticised for their slow response.