Uttarakhand avalanche: Death toll climbs to five with recovery of one more body
Dehradun (PTI): A missing labourer was found dead on Sunday at the site of the avalanche-hit BRO camp in Mana village of Uttarakhand's Chamoli district as rescuers carried out a search for the three other workers still missing with the help of sniffer dogs, thermal imaging cameras and helicopters.
With the recovery of one more body, the death toll in the disaster has climbed to five, district authorities said.
The avalanche hit the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp between Mana and Badrinath on Friday, burying 54 workers inside eight containers and a shed. Earlier, it was believed that the total number of avalanche-hit labourers was 55 but one of them was on unauthorised leave and had reached home safely.
Fifty labourers were pulled out of snow by Friday.
Army doctors said 46 workers have been brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath while one with spinal chord injury was airlifted to AIIMS, Rishikesh.
Three of them are critical, Lt Col DS Maldhya said.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited the Uttarakhand State Emergency Operation Centre here to take an update on the rescue operation.
Speaking to reporters, he said, "The ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is being sent to the avalanche site and help of modern tools like thermal imaging camera and victim locating camera are being taken to trace the labourers still missing. The weather may turn bad on Monday again. The effort is to trace the missing on Sunday itself".
In a post on X, Dhami said he has instructed officials to expedite the ongoing operation.
"The Indian Army, ITBP, NDRF, SDRF and other relief and rescue teams are working on a war footing at the site of the incident," he said.
Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said the search operation is expected to gain pace as the weather is clear and GPR system from Delhi is expected to arrive here any moment to aid the efforts.
An Mi-17 helicopter is waiting in Dehradun to fly the GPR system to the avalanche site, he said.
State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams with a sniffer dogs are at the avalanche site to help in the search and rescue efforts, he said.
Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta, GOC-in C, Central Command, and Lt Gen D G Mishra, GOC, Uttar Bharat, are at the avalanche site to monitor the rescue operations.
Six helicopters -- three of the Indian Army Aviation Corps, two of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and a civil chopper hired by the Army -- have been engaged in the operation.
Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres.
Army officials said the rescue operation on Saturday was mostly carried out by the Army and IAF helicopters as the approach road was blocked by snow at several points, making vehicular movement nearly impossible.
The priority is to bring the rescued workers to the Army hospital in Jyotirmath and look for the four missing workers, they said.
If weather permits, specialised RECCO radars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), quadcopters and avalanche rescue dogs will be pressed into service to trace the missing workers, Lt Gen. Sengupta said.
"Everything depends on the weather," he added.
More than 200 personnel from the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, NDRF, SDRF, IAF, district administration, health department and fire brigade are engaged in the rescue operations, he said.
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Post poll TN alliances divided in supporting TVK
Chennai (PTI): In a changed political atmosphere in Tamil Nadu with no single political party having a simple majority to form the government post the Assembly election, opinion is divided among the allies led by the Dravidian majors in extending external support to Vijay-led TVK in government formation.
Both the DMK and AIADMK are at unease as the Congress and also a section in the AIADMK express willingness to extend external support to Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagtam in forming the government.
Post poll, the TVK's political prospects appear to impact alliances led by both the Dravidian majors in a different manner, triggering a speculation of a split.
Leema Rose Martin, who won from Lalgudi on an AIADMK ticket, has stated that talks were underway on extending support to the TVK. Her son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna, who won from Villivakkam is TVK's general secretary.
On May 5, former AIADMK minister O S Manian, emerging from his meeting with party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, stated that AIADMK would not support TVK in forming the government.
The AIADMK, which finished third in the elections with 47 seats has cancelled its meeting of MLAs designate on Wednesday amidst a difference in extending external support to the TVK, which won 108 seats, including two seats by its founder Vijay.
As Vijay is gearing up for his swearing-in on May 7, the police have tightened security at his residence here. The party has lodged its MLA-elect at a resort in Mamallapuram and has simultaneously engaged in talks with the Congress and AIADMK, a source said.
The DMK that won 59 seats on its own, has convened a meeting of its newly elected legislators on May 7 evening and the party is likely to elect the youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, who won from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni as its legislature party leader.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal admitted that TVK chief Vijay requested the Congress for support to form the government.
"The INC is clear that the mandate in Tamil Nadu is for a secular government, committed to protecting the Constitution in letter and spirit. The INC is determined not to allow the BJP and its proxies to run the government of Tamil Nadu in any manner. Thiru Vijay has also spoken about drawing inspiration from Perunthalaivar Kamaraj," he said.
Accordingly, the Congress leadership has directed the TNCC to take a final decision on Vijay’s request, keeping in view the sentiments of the state as reflected in the electoral verdict, Venugopal said in a statement.
DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai slammed the Congress decision and said the move to ally with TVK, pledging the support of its five MLAs to the party, was tantamount to "backstabbing the DMK and the people of Tamil Nadu."
"They have betrayed the mandate given by the people. Even before the ink on the returning officer’s signature on the victory certificate has dried, they have chosen to go ahead with this alliance," he told PTI.
The most important question was who took this "foolhardy decision, and how is it going to backfire on the Congress?" he asked.
"I don’t think they had any serious deliberation on this. The larger issue is their opposition to the BJP, which is their ideological enemy. We have supported the Congress throughout. It was our leader M K Stalin, who named Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate when the BJP and RSS were criticising him. And now, within a day, they say they are supporting TVK. This is not the mandate of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Saravanan said.
The Congress' exit from its long-standing alliance with the DMK will be a significant moment in the political scenario of the state, commentator and political analyst Sumanth Raman said.
The Congress may be betting on the TVK as a long-term partner option, but that comes with risks, as the TVK is as yet an unknown quantity, he said.
"For the DMK, if the TVK+Congress becomes the choice of the minorities as it well could, it is an existential threat. It was the minority vote that gave the DMK alliance a 12%-15% cushion in the polls. If that goes, their chances of winning drops dramatically," Raman said on 'X.'
The Congress won 5 seats. However, DMK's other allies, the IUML, VCK, CPI and CPI (M) and DMDK have categorically stated that they would not support TVK.
As of now, the TVK requires the support of 11 MLAs to attain a simple majority of 118 to form the government.
The PMK, which won 4 seats and AMMK one - both allies of AIADMK - have not announced their decision yet.
"AIADMK’s real post-result drama may not be outside the party, but inside it. Whispers from the west and north suggest that a Coimbatore hand and a Villupuram voice may soon ask the question everyone is avoiding: Is it time to save the party from the leadership, before the cadre are forced to do it themselves? In politics, coups don’t begin with slogans. They begin with silence, phone calls and “review meetings,” Aspire Swaminathan, who is credited with founding the AIADMK IT wing in 2014, said on 'X.'
He has resigned from the AIADMK in 2021 and now acts an as independent political analyst.
