A week after a devastating cloudburst at Chisoti professional village in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, the people are in shock as rescue workers continue to visit not only intact bodies but also severed limbs out of the ruins. The morbid findings have sent chills among locals in the area and doctors at the Atholi sub-district hospital, just about 30km away.
Earlier this week, on Monday, rescuers pulled a complete body as well as a severed leg. The official death toll went up to 68 the next day, with four more bodies recovered and two severed feet. Officials are afraid that the numbers might keep increasing.
Confirming all recovered remains are sent to GMC Kishtwar to speed up DNA profiling, Kishtwar district commissioner Pankaj Sharma said. He stated that the families of missing victims were collecting samples and cross-checking them against recovered bodies to help with identifications. Initially, there were as many as 137 people missing, of whom 62 have been rescued alive, Sharma said.
But on the ground, medical staffers were anxious that the end death toll stood to be much higher. Dr. Rakesh Kotwal, posted at the Atholi hospital, said, “The damage is not going to end here, the magnitude is very severe, and rescue work is very hard.”
The calamity occurred on August 14, when flash floods caused by a cloudburst washed through Chisoti. Hundreds of pilgrims were at the time in the village, which is an important halting place on the pilgrimage route to the Machail Mata Mandir, and were being fed by a community kitchen (langar), when the floods hit.
The cloudburst not only resulted in loss of lives, but it also ruined important infrastructure. There emerged a makeshift market, 16 houses, a few government buildings, three temples, a 30-metre bridge, and four water mills, which were all destroyed.
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