Rescue operations continue for third day in J&K’s Kishtwar; 60 dead, over 100 injured

A coordinated rescue and relief operation continued for the third consecutive day on Saturday, 16 August, in a remote village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district, where 60 people lost their lives and over 100 others were injured, officials said.

Union minister Jitendra Singh, accompanied by Jammu and Kashmir director general of police (DGP) Nalin Prabhat, visited the devastated village late Friday night and reviewed ongoing rescue and relief efforts carried out by the police, army, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Border Roads Organisation (BRO), civil administration, and local volunteers operating in the high-altitude terrain.

So far, 46 bodies have been identified and handed over to their next of kin after completion of legal formalities. Meanwhile, 75 persons have been reported missing by their families, although locals and eyewitnesses claim that hundreds may have been swept away by flash floods and buried under giant boulders, logs, and rubble.

Among the deceased were two personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and a Special Police Officer (SPO) of the local police, the officials added.

The disaster struck Chisoti — the last motorable village en route to the Machail Mata temple — at approximately 12.25 pm on 14 August. It flattened a makeshift market, a langar (community kitchen) site for the yatra, and a security outpost.

At least 16 residential houses and government buildings, three temples, four water mills, a 30-meter-long bridge, and over a dozen vehicles were also damaged in the flash floods.

The annual Machail Mata yatra, which began on 25 July and was scheduled to conclude on 5 September, remained suspended for the third consecutive day on Saturday. The 8.5-kilometre trek to the 9,500-foot-high shrine starts from Chisoti, located about 90 kilometres from Kishtwar town.

Rescue efforts were intensified with the deployment of nearly a dozen earth-movers by the civil administration and the use of specialised equipment and dog squads by the NDRF.

"After a long, tedious uphill drive, managed to reach the site of the cloudburst disaster in Kishtwar… very late, around midnight," the Union minister said in a social media post after the visit.

He was accompanied by the DGP and was briefed on the ongoing rescue and relief operations.