News about Uttarakhand Floods: Helping Hands at Uttarakhand Flood Relief Camps

Rains continue to rage as the rivers keep swelling and breaking out in flashfloods leaving a trail of death and destruction in the Himalayan slopes at Uttarakhand and surrounding areas. Amid the mayhem and havoc wreaked by Nature, helping hands have rushed to reach out and save those left stranded–be it pilgrims or locals who’ve had all but their lives washed away in the last few days. Medindia has Relief Updates from The Art of Living (AOL) volunteers who rushed from all over India to Dehradun in large numbers to help rescue and offer relief to people distressed in this calamity. AOL volunteers adopted a multi-pronged approach to tackle the colossal relief work organizing themselves into teams that worked in tandem with the Indian armed forces and Disaster Management teams to help save the locals and stranded pilgrims. The Jolly Grant airport, an IAF base granted permission to AOL volunteers to enter and help with relief work. Volunteers helped dispatch food and water in helicopters and also helped people find their estranged families among evacuees. Transport arrangements were made to send the rescued back to their hometowns as far as Kota, Gorakhpur and Bhopal among many other places.

Medical camps were set up in Srinagar to provide round-the-clock medical aid to hundreds of evacuees. Rescued evacuees and hundreds of pilgrims coming down from Badrinath are getting continuous treatment in these medical camps. Apart from the much-needed medical care, also food, resting facilities and even personal attention were ensured. Volunteers report that a team from Srinagar is also working two hours every evening to clear debris from Shakti Vihar area.

A team of 8 people set out for Dharasu with five truckloads of relief material a couple of days ago, to set up a similar medical and relief camp there. Another team in Guptakashi is already helping people stuck there while braving the incessant rains that have blocked some roads hampering transit from one place to another.

While the official death toll in this calamity is put at one thousand, experts are sure that the death toll has crossed ten thousand. With bodies strewn on the hillsides, fever, diarrhea and the threat of epidemic haunting the affected people, it is heartening to hear that The Art of Living volunteers, eager to help, continue calling from all over the country, offering to come and help with the ongoing work. The rain, and thunder and the helicopter crash killing even the rescuers, don’t seemed to have dampened the spirit of these good people who are going all out to save the thousands of people affected by the torrential rains and flashfloods in and around Uttarkhand.

Rescue teams working in the affected areas observe that even after the immediate relief work is over, there should be an organized effort to help rehabilitate the locals because several villages have been washed away, causing tremendous loss of life and property. With the Art of Living Founder Sri Sri Ravishankar’s tweet encouraging more volunteers to join the rescue and relief operations, more initiatives are expected to come forth in the following days as the flood affected people slowly pick up their lives and limp back to normalcy.

Medindia will come up with more Uttarakhand relief updates to inform our readers from the scene of disaster.

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Source-Medindia