GANGTOK (AP) – Rescuers found more bodies overnight as they dug through slushy debris and ice-cold water in a hunt for survivors after a glacial lake burst through a dam in India’s Himalayan northeast, washing away houses and bridges and forcing thousands to flee.
Officials said the hundreds of rescuers recovered six more bodies, bringing the death toll to 47. At least 150 people are still missing.
The flood began shortly after midnight on Wednesday, when the waters of a glacial lake overflowed, cracking open the biggest hydroelectric dam in Sikkim state.
The icy waters then cascaded through towns in the valley below, where it killed scores of people and carried some bodies kilometres away downstream, where they were found in the neighbouring state of West Bengal and Bangladesh, police said. Police said nearly 4,000 tourists were stranded in two locations, Lachung and Lachen in the northern part of the state, where access was severely restricted as the floods had washed away roads.
But the bad weather has made rescue efforts more challenging, with authorities unable to deploy helicopters to assist those stuck in vulnerable areas.
Some 3,900 people were currently in 26 relief camps set up by the state, Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang said yesterday.
He added that seven out of the 22 Indian army soldiers who were reported missing had died.
It wasn’t clear what triggered the deadly flood in the mountainous Sikkim state, the latest to hit northeast India in a year of unusually heavy monsoon rains.
Nearly 50 people died in flash floods and landslides in August in nearby Himachal Pradesh state.
