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Army runs airlift sortie before bad weather shuts the sky out

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Six of the eight injured men and six dead bodies were airlifted from the ill-fated Malpa village in Pithoragarh district in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where Tuesday's landslide had taken a toll of as many as 202 human lives, an Indian army spokesman said today.

Major General J R Mukherjee told reporters, "This was the first major headway in the relief operations that were taken up on Wednesday." He said bad weather, dark clouds and incessant rains in the affected Himalayan region had prevented the flight of army helicopters over the past four days. With slight improvement in the weather today, he was hopeful that more sorties would be possible to enable airlifting of the remaining dead bodies, "but then it started raining again later in the afternoon."

"Naturally, our first priority was to bring down the injured," he said, while adding, "Thereafter we began transporting dead bodies." According to him, "Besides the eight injured picked up from Malpa, the helicopters could sight some five other injured people near Chiyalekh and Gunji, a couple of kilometres ahead of Malpa where they had managed to reach after a miraculous escape with only minor injuries."

Contrary to the claim of civil authorities yesterday about the recovery of 32 dead bodies from the debris, Mukherjee confirmed the recovery of 28 bodies. "Of course, according to reports reaching from the helicopters on duty, 15 more bodies were visible at various ends of the debris," he added.

He said the Malpa landslide was still receiving the onslaught of falling boulders that obstructed the path of an additional contingent of about 500 army personnel who were another way to join the relief operations. They are currently trying to alert the mountain to go across the Kali river in order to reach the landslide site where 60 Mansarovar pilgrims and over hundred accompanying officials and porters were camping on the fateful night when the tragedy struck.

Major General Mukherjee disclosed that none of the 13 survivors found so far were pilgrims. "They were either men of the Border Roads Organisation or from among those involved in the administration of the Malpa camp," he pointed out, while confessing, "The actual site where the pilgrims were camping still remains inaccessible even to our soldiers." He, however, emphasised, "As of now our men are just about 500 metres from that spot, but we are confident that they will negotiate this hostile track by the evening."

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