Battered infra hobbles rescue ops in U'khand; many missing

Rescuers in Uttarkashi dug through mounds of mud and debris on Wednesday to unearth bodies and locate potential survivors, a day after flash floods ploughed through a clutch of villages in the upper reaches of Uttarakhand, wrecking dozens of buildings and sweeping away several people.

- Neeraj Santoshi and Jayashree Nandi

Relief teams recovered two bodies on Wednesday and personnel on the ground warned that this number would likely spiral. The toll from the diaster remained unclear.

The trigger for Tuesday's carnage, initially seen as cloud bursts, was unclear; experts from the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said they were examining the possibility that a glacier collapse upstream of the channel feeding Kheer Ganga set off the mayhem.

Arpan Yaduvanshi, SDRF commandant (Uttarakhand)said that till 6pm, around 190 people, including ll army personnel, had been rescued in Dharali. "The injured army personnel have been airlifted to Dehradun."

Joint teams from state and central forces continued working to rebuild roads and bridges wrecked after the disaster. Families waited anxiously for updates, as officials underscored that the scale of the disaster made the chances of survival grim.

Rakesh Panwar's brother, sister-in-law, and their three-yearold son are among those missing. "My brother Sushil had e home for lunch, just a kilometre away. Moments after the cloudburst, he called me in shock, saying, 'Nothing is left.

Mukesh, Vijeta, and Anik couldn't escape the deluge..."," said Rakesh, who works in Uttarkashi town.