Sunday, September 26, 2010

Uttarakhand floods: 600 Bengal tourists rescued; 8 still missing

Over 600 tourists from West Bengal have been evacuated to safer places from remote destinations in the flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, even as eight persons still remained missing.

"While 113 tourists were airlifted from Sangla to Shimla, 500 others from the state reached Haridwar via roads from Beroli this morning," West Bengal civil defence minister Srikumar Mukherjee said over phone from Haridwar.

There is, however, no news so far of the three trekkers, four porters and a guide who had gone on an expedition to Kalindi Peak and Pass in the upper reaches of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, said Mukherjee, who has gone to Uttarakhand along with another minister and senior officials to monitor rescue and safe return of tourists from the state.

"The Uttarakhand government has extended all help to the tourists in search and rescue operations and they have done everything they could in such trying circumstances," he said.

Meanwhile, the 500 tourists who reached Haridwar will be returning to Kolkata by tomorrow, Mukherjee said, adding that the Railways have updated the tickets of all these passengers and have accommodated them in the trains on priority basis.

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