4 more bodies recovered from chopper crash site, all 20 confirmed dead:
The dead include five IAF officials while the identity of others is being ascertained, they said. four more bodies were recovered by IAF commandos near Gaurikund in Uttarakhand where an IAF Mi-17 helicopter carrying 20 people had crashed during a rescue mission and all onboard are feared killed.
During night-long search operations, Garud commandos recovered four more bodies, IAF sources said, adding that till this morning 12 bodies have been found from the site of yesterday's crash of the large Air Force chopper.
The dead include five IAF officials while the identity of others is being ascertained, they said.
There were 20 people onboard the ill-fated chopper - five from IAF, six from ITBP and rest from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) sources said.
The Mi-17 V5 chopper was on a rescue mission from Gauchar to Guptkashi and Kedarnath and crashed yesterday afternoon while returning from Kedarnath north of Gaurikund, according to an IAF spokesperson.
IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne rushed to Uttarakhand today to boost the morale of pilots operating in difficult weather conditions.The crash occurred in "difficult" weather conditions created by rains and fog, a senior IAF official said here. The chopper belonged to a unit from Barrackpore
Air Force Station in West Bengal under the Eastern Air Command.
A Court of Inquiry has been order to investigate the crash, the IAF spokesperson said.
IAF said its operations in the area will continue.
IAF had started inducting Mi-17 V5 choppers only last year after 80 of them were ordered from Russia.
This is the second incident of a helicopter crash this week in the hill state. A private chopper had crashed in Gaurikund area on Sunday leaving the pilot injured.
Browne expressed profound sorrow over the loss of "warriors" from the IAF, NDRF and ITBP in the chopper crash and said, "Our rotors will not stop churning. That means, we will continue with the job till get the people out." The Air Force chief, who interacted with IAF officers and men here, said, "We will sustain the mission and continue to keep the morale (of our personnel) high.
"...The operations are going to continue. In fact, most of the work has already been done. It is now a question of getting the people out from Badrinath and the Harsil sector," he added.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed shock over the loss of lives in the helicopter crash.
"This accident during relief operations has come as a huge shock to me. My heart goes out to the families of those who have lost their lives. The nation mourns with me the loss of our heroes whose selfless work has saved thousands of lives," Singh said yesterday.
"Our forces are conducting a heroic task in rescue and relief work in Uttarakhand...Continuing their work would be the best homage to them," he added.
The five IAF personnel killed were a Wing Commander, two Flight Lieutenants, a Junior Warrant Officer and a Sergeant.
And CWC failed to forecast, alert about floods:
Hundreds of lives could have been saved from the Uttarakhand floods had the flood forecasting division of the Central Water Commission (CWC) predicted the impending disaster. Worse, with Polarimetric C Band Doppler radars for Uttarakhand capable of predicting cloud bursts stuck for five years, the tragedy was waiting to happen.
The CWC has a flood forecasting management division that was completely oblivious to the floods that occurred in Uttarakhand on June 15-16. This was due to the lack of flood prediction sites at the most vulnerable areas such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, Uttarkashi, Harsil, which could have yielded warnings in time to save lives. Currently the CWC has sites only at Rishikesh, Haridwar and Srinagar, which failed to predict the disaster. A detailed analysis by the NGO South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) noticed this major lacuna over several weeks.
“Despite huge rainfall in the catchment areas for several days, the CWC was oblivious to this threat and only predicted a rise in water levels in Rishikesh and Haridwar,” Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP told dna. In fact, between June 2-7, the CWC website was not functioning and it took repeated calls and emails from SANDRP for them to realise that the website was down.
This was confirmed to dna by VD Roy, the director of the food forecasting management division of the CWC. “Yes, it is true that our site was down for a few days due to technical reason,” he said. As for the lack of forecasts in Uttarakhand, he said that this was “not feasible because the warning would have been available for only a few hours.”
Thakkar rejected this argument. “This is a very lame excuse not to have sites in the most vulnerable areas,” he said. “Even a few hours of advance warning can make a massive difference in saving lives. The CWC functions callously as is apparent by its false prediction of a massive flood in the Brahmaputra this month. Had this actually occurred, all of Assam would have submerged.”
Shockingly, even cloud bursts that led to this massive tragedy could have been predicted had the government procured the Doppler radars. “These were sanctioned in 2008 but the state government did nothing and the central government and the NDMA just sat on it,” Dr SK Srivastava, former director general of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) tolddna. These radars can give at least a three-hour advance warning for a cloud burst. “Such radars along with a flood warning system could have saved the thousands who died this time,” Srivastava told dna.
He was shocked when told that former Uttarakhand chief ministers BC Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and the current National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Shashidhar Reddy feigned ignorance about the radars. “I was disgusted that they didn’t know that this project has been pending for years. Two sites in Mussoorie and Nainital had also been identified and the money sanctioned, but they did nothing,” he said.
The CWC has a flood forecasting management division that was completely oblivious to the floods that occurred in Uttarakhand on June 15-16. This was due to the lack of flood prediction sites at the most vulnerable areas such as Kedarnath, Badrinath, Uttarkashi, Harsil, which could have yielded warnings in time to save lives. Currently the CWC has sites only at Rishikesh, Haridwar and Srinagar, which failed to predict the disaster. A detailed analysis by the NGO South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) noticed this major lacuna over several weeks.
“Despite huge rainfall in the catchment areas for several days, the CWC was oblivious to this threat and only predicted a rise in water levels in Rishikesh and Haridwar,” Himanshu Thakkar of SANDRP told dna. In fact, between June 2-7, the CWC website was not functioning and it took repeated calls and emails from SANDRP for them to realise that the website was down.
This was confirmed to dna by VD Roy, the director of the food forecasting management division of the CWC. “Yes, it is true that our site was down for a few days due to technical reason,” he said. As for the lack of forecasts in Uttarakhand, he said that this was “not feasible because the warning would have been available for only a few hours.”
Thakkar rejected this argument. “This is a very lame excuse not to have sites in the most vulnerable areas,” he said. “Even a few hours of advance warning can make a massive difference in saving lives. The CWC functions callously as is apparent by its false prediction of a massive flood in the Brahmaputra this month. Had this actually occurred, all of Assam would have submerged.”
Shockingly, even cloud bursts that led to this massive tragedy could have been predicted had the government procured the Doppler radars. “These were sanctioned in 2008 but the state government did nothing and the central government and the NDMA just sat on it,” Dr SK Srivastava, former director general of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) tolddna. These radars can give at least a three-hour advance warning for a cloud burst. “Such radars along with a flood warning system could have saved the thousands who died this time,” Srivastava told dna.
He was shocked when told that former Uttarakhand chief ministers BC Khanduri and Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and the current National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Shashidhar Reddy feigned ignorance about the radars. “I was disgusted that they didn’t know that this project has been pending for years. Two sites in Mussoorie and Nainital had also been identified and the money sanctioned, but they did nothing,” he said.
Sonia Gandhi flags off relief mission after Narendra Modi's 'rescue' act In Uttarakhand's massive tragedy and the Herculean rescue efforts now on, politics too has found a role. Narendra Modi's visit to the flood-ravaged hill state and alleged evacuation of 15,000 Gujaratis on the weekend has sparked a slanging match between his BJP and the Congress, which is now organising some visible relief programmes of its own.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi this morning flagged off 24 trucks carrying relief material to Uttarakhand from the party's Delhi headquarters. On stage with her were senior ministers and Congress number 2, Rahul Gandhi, who has now reached Uttarakhand to asses the situation.
Mr Gandhi was abroad last week when the massive floods hit Uttarakhand and today's flag-off was his first public appearance since then. A fact that the BJP has highlighted. Meenakshi Lekhi said, "Rahul Gandhi is needed and he is in a foreign country..."
The Congress said Mr Modi's "Rambo act" reflected "the rank opportunism and the sheer desperation to try and politicise and even milk tragedy for political gains." Mr Modi's opponents have also criticised him for singling out Gujaratis for help.
The Congress' Oscar Fernandes today sought to explain how the public appearance of his party's top leaders was different from Mr Modi's parachute act in Uttarakhand. The presence of Mrs Gandhi and Rahul, he said, was only designed to enthuse party workers engaged in relief operations.
Mr Modi aggravated the Congress, which governs Uttarakhand, further by tweeting that he had offered to rebuild the holy shrine of Kedarnath, destroyed by the flood.
Senior minister Ambika Soni said Mr Modi was not the only Chief Minister to have visited Uttarakhand. The Congress' Prithivraj Chavan of Maharashtra and Ashok Gehlot of Rajasthan had visited too, she pointed out.
Mr Chavan, in fact, held a press conference yesterday to detail how his government had helped people from his state stuck in Uttarakhand.
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