Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Sept 13: As flood waters receded, health worries mounted in Kashmir Valley today over any outbreak of water-borne diseases.
“We are sitting on a time bomb of an imminent epidemic outbreak. The clock is ticking fast and if immediate steps are not taken, a disaster of a much bigger scale could soon engulf the entire Kashmir Valley,” warned the Medical Commandant with Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Dr P M Kabui.
The threat of an epidemic outbreak looms large after the water starts to recede in the city, he said.
Compounding the threat and adding to the miseries of the residents is the fact that the flood has rendered the entire Srinagar Municipal Corporation defunct with most of the areas filled with heaps of garbage.
“People do not have access to clean drinking water and they are forced to drink the contaminated flood water which can give rise to many water-borne diseases like hepatitis, diarrhea and several others,” Kabui said.
Touseef Ahmed, a doctor with the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar who been treating patients at a makeshift clinic in Barzulla Bagat, said Kashmiris can suffer from diseases like malaria and dengue in the coming days.
“The stranded water in many areas could become a breeding ground for mosquitoes giving rise to epidemics of malaria and dengue. Previously, these diseases were least known to the people of Kashmir,” said Dr Ahmed.
Health workers in Srinagar say if the carcasses of hundreds and thousands of stray dogs and other animals that perished in the floods are not removed and disposed of properly, they can also cause plague and other such diseases.
“History is witness that an area affected by flood is always vulnerable to deadly diseases like plague.
The Government needs to put in place its men and machinery to clean and dispose of these carcasses at the earliest, so that the outbreak of the epidemic can be put under check,” Dr Kabui said.
He said “urgent” and “emergency” steps need to be taken before it is too late to check the spread of any kind of epidemic.
The health workers say the priority should be to provide clean and safe drinking water to the stranded people in the city.
Even as the men in uniform continue their relentless efforts to provide succour to flood victims in the Kashmir Valley, their aircraft and boats are being targeted by stone pelters.
Some of the 80 IAF aircraft involved in relief and rescue operations across the flooded Srinagar city have suffered minor damage after they were targeted by stone pelters but the security personnel say they “won’t give up” till help reaches all.
A rotary wing plane of the air force suffered damage during stonepelting during one of its sorties to undertake rescue operation in the city.
“There have been incidents when the helicopters flying at low altitude were targeted with stones and one of the helicopter was in fact hit by several stones causing some minor damage on the body and near the rotary wings,” a senior Air force officer told.
The officer said that the helicopter, however, returned safely to the base where the damage was being assessed. The army too says that some of its boats deployed for relief and rescue operations were attacked by stone pelters.
“It is unfortunate that the people who are trying to save them are being attacked, but we will not give up and will continue with our work till help does not reach to every single soul,” said Air Marshal S B Deo, Director General of Air Operations.
There have been reports that at certain places people are being instigated by separatists to target and disrupt the relief and rescue work being undertaken by the air force and the army.
Deo said that he could understand that there was anger amongst the people and he has empathy for those who lost everything in the floods.
“We are doing our duty for which we have deployed more than 80 aircraft and as you can see in every three minute a plane takes a sortie. We are not going to give up,” Deo said.
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