The Hindu : National : 250 evacuated from border areas

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 10, 2005

National

National

250 evacuated from border areas

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: With authorities reaching on Sunday the remote earthquake-hit areas that could not be accessed on Saturday, the Army and Air Force continuing their round-the-clock rescue and relief operation evacuated 250 injured persons in Jammu and Kashmir close to the Line of Control (LoC).

Even as Indian Air Force personnel made 27 sorties rescuing and evacuating 200 injured and some dead bodies, two of its MI-17 Helicopters formed an air bridge between the worst-affected Uri and Kupwara region and the Corps Headquarters in Srinagar. Another MI-17 and some smaller Chetak helicopters were ferrying the injured from Tangdhar — another worst-affected area in North Kashmir.

An Army spokesman said here that some of the areas on the border in Karnah sector were reached for the first time on Sunday morning and the pilots reported heavy devastation. It is feared that casualty figures for both Army and civilians could be heavy as the region is very close to the epicentre Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

There were reports about personnel of the Border Roads Organisation having been buried in a huge landslip on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Highway between Uri and Aman Setu. These reports suggested that the Pakistani side of the bridge embankment had collapsed and was badly damaged by falling boulders rendering the vital link non-operational.

The IAF spokesman said here that 50 doctors were airlifted and moved to the quake-affected sites to attend to the injured. A team of Army engineers too was moved from Jalandhar for restoration of the damaged bridges.

All stations of the IAF were on 24-hour alert. The Air Force has kept two IL-76 and six N-32 aircraft ready for rescue operations at short notice.

Vaishnodevi shrine safe

PTI reports from Jammu:

The earthquake caused no damage to the Vaishnodevi shrine and the `yatra' is continuing uninterrupted.

The shrine, which is being thronged by nearly 40,000 devotees daily during the ongoing `Navaratri' festival, was ``untouched'' by the quake, the Additional Chief Executive Officer of Mata Vaishnodevi Shrine Board, Puneet Kumar, said.

There were no casualties either in the base camp of Katra or along the 13-km hilly track leading to the cave shrine. 0

``The cave shrine and over a hundred odd structures, hotels and the pilgrims survived the nature's fury,'' he said.

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