(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The rescue and evacuation operations were delayed in the rain-ravaged Uttarakhand early Wednesday owing to rains and dense fog in some areas, officials said.
'After the chopper crash Tuesday, we are moving with caution to ensure that such incidents do not reoccur. We are waiting for the weather to improve," said a senior state official.
While at some places the skies had opened up, fog remained a cause of concern, the official added.
The rescue mission to rescue more than 7,500 people still stranded on the Badrinath route in Joshimath and Harshil is likely to start around noon, officials involved in the operations told IANS
Helicopter services, however, are continuing in Dharasu area of Uttarkashi. But with the inclement weather continuing to affect the rescue, army is now focussing more on the evacuation on foot.
Rescuers have been urging people to walk to safety to the army base camps with the help of the troopers guiding them.
The people, who have now reached the relief and medical camps set up by army, are waiting for the weather to clear so that sorties of choppers may begin and they can be airlifted to Dehradun, Haridwar and Rishikesh.
More than 845 people have been confirmed dead in the natural calamity that hit Uttarakhand June 15.
Meanwhile, the bodies of eight people on board an Indian Air Force (IAF) chopper which crashed Tuesday have been located. Officials say the probability of survival of the remaining 12 is remote. The chopper has been charred badly.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed shock over the accident while commending the armed forces for their "selfless work" in saving lives.
While Indian Air Force (IAF) and army officials maintained that the rescue operations would continue, they admitted that the operations "had taken a brief hit" and added that they were now being "extra cautious and not over zealous".
"All efforts are being done to pull out the trapped people but we will now take weather conditions and warnings more seriously," an army officer said .
The NDMA declared Uttarakhand devastation a "severe natural disaster" and requested leaders not to politicise the issue. It also said it would send a team to locate bodies under the debris.
Due to severe rains in Dehradun, many helicopters like the Mi-17 with higher passenger capacity were mostly grounded at the Jolly Grant airport while smaller choppers which tried to fly had to return to their bases at Joshimath and Harshil.
Fog prevented rescue sorties around Devprayag, where a cloudburst in Dubh Mamora village left two people dead and three missing and washed away several houses, while bad weather hit chopper missions at Jangalchatti, Guptkashi, and Gauchar.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said that while weather had hit the rescue operations, he requested people not to lose hope.
"We will reach every person who is stranded, it is just that weather is hampering the rescue efforts," he added, contending that the number of people to be rescued was well under 5,000.
Officials also added that the mass funeral proposed for the people who died in Kedarnath premises and whose bodies are decomposing there was also aborted due to the rains.
The NDMA also said that around 125 bodies were recovered from the flood-devastated Kedarnath area, while many more could be buried under the debris.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel, undertaking rescue operations there, said the decomposing human and animal corpses are posing a health hazard.
Personnel of the Armed Forces Medical Services are working in the state with 29 teams deployed around Kedarnath while an emergency centre has been set up at Joshimath, an official release said.
In New Delhi, the NDMA vice chairman said MPs from all states could each contribute Rs.50 lakh from their funds for the relief work.
"Despite doing politics over the calamity, all the leaders and MPs should contribute as they can donate Rs.50 lakh from their funds in a national level disaster," Shashidhar Reddy said.
He said the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) would send a team to the state for locating bodies under the debris.
The ITBP raised concerns about decaying corpses. "The corpses are eight to nine days old. They are rotting. It is difficult to operate in that area due to the strong stench," said an ITBP spokesman.
An aid worker meanwhile called the situation in Uttarakhand "a mess" as vast stretches of roads have disappeared and transporting relief to some of the worst-hit areas was near impossible.
"It is a mess right now. It is a complete mess," despaired a spokesperson for ActionAid, which has relief workers in Chamoli, Rudraprayag and Pithoragarh districts.
She said that renewed rains and landslides have made it difficult to reach the areas cut off since the cloudburst and terrible flooding of over 10 days ago.
The spokesperson reiterated that the overall death toll would "definitely be more than 1,000, may be in thousands".
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