Walking in knee-deep muck, SDRF looks for bodies in Alaknanda
After finding bodies, next challenge for the SDRF is to drag them out in silt and mud
DEHRADUN: After the flash floods struck Uttarakhand’s Chamoli, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) was the first to reach the disaster spot along with the local police to initiate the rescue operation.
With nearly 200 people missing, SDRF personnel walk in knee-deep silt and muck in the Alaknanda river to spot the bodies in muddy waters.
SDRF is the lone agency involved in searching the bodies of the people killed in the washing away of the two hydel power projects in Sunday’s flash floods. Five to six teams of about 100 personnel are involved in scanning the river on boats and foot to find the bodies.
Inspector Anirudh Bhandari, who is leading a team of about 15 SDRF personnel to search the bodies while walking on the riverside, said, “The major challenge for us is the thick mud and round boulders near the riverside. It is extremely difficult to walk on them while searching for bodies.”
Bhandari and his team have scanned 50-60 kms on foot and so far recovered 8 bodies.
“We have to look for bodies with binoculars in the muddy waters. Most of the bodies we have recovered were stuck under heavy boulders or roots of big trees on the riverside. Some of them were mutilated with limbs, heads or lower body missing,” said inspector Bhandari.
“After finding the bodies, the next challenge is to drag them out in the knee-deep silt and mud and then take them up to one or two km on foot to the road. Some of them are beyond recognition as they were swollen in the mud.”
Bhandari said they have found some bodies in the river about 100km away from the NTPC dam site, where around 120 workers went missing. “We are leaving our base at 7 in the morning and work till 7-8 pm with hardly any break. Last two days we work without any food for 12 hours.”
Apart from searching the bodies on foot, SDRF teams are scanning the river on boats. “The biggest difficulty is the muddy river water,” said inspector Manjri Negi, who is leading a team to search bodies on motorboats.
“It is very difficult to look through the muddy water for bodies. We are recovering bodies after spotting a small part of them. In some cases we are able to spot just a hand coming out of water; then we have to go near the bodies on foot as they are stuck mainly on the riverside where the boats cannot reach,” said Negi.
She said they have found some bodies about 150 kms away from the NTPC dam site. “Yesterday we found one body near Dhari Devi temple, which is about 150kms away from the NTPC site in Tapovan. This is also posing a challenge as we don’t know till how much distance the bodies could be found in the river. We are putting all our efforts to find the bodies,” said Negi.