As rescue and relief efforts continued on war-footing for the fourth day on Monday in cloudburst-hit Leh region, the death toll climbed to 147 while nearly 500 people, including two French nationals, remained untraceable. 147 bodies have been extricated from the rubble out of which 121 have been identified so far. Three foreigners including two French nationals are still missing while one injured Spanish national has been evacuated by IAF, official sources said. They said nearly 500 people are still missing. Sniffer dogs, which arrived here by a transport aircraft of Indian Air Force have been pressed into service to look for survivors as relief efforts by security forces gained momentum who were taking the help of heavy duty bulldozers, JCBs and other machines to clear the rubble.
The Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF), police and civilian authorities were trying hard to remove the piles of mud and slush which had buried villages in the worst-battered Choglusmar belt here as well as to restore telephone links, the sources said.
Meanwhile, a fresh cloudburst in Kargil area on Saturday has cut off many villages.
The IAF tried to airdrop essential items including tents and clothing in the villages affected by the cloudburst as roads were badly damaged, Tashi Tsetan, Deputy Director with the development wing of the local administration, said.
Continuing its relief operations, the Air Force ferried heavy machines, medicines, relief material and doctors here using IL-76 and AN-32 aircraft and flying out bodies of the victims to various places as the highways remained cutoff.
ITBP is helping plug the breaches to make NH-1A between Srinagar-Kargil and Kargil-Leh functional.
Faced with an acute shortage of clean drinking water, the ITBP has dispatched water tankers to the affected areas, Deepak Pandey, spokesperson for the border guarding force, said.
The force has also established a medical camp in Saboo village, which is located above Chuglumsar village, Pandey said.