Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 17: Senior political leader, Pawan Khajuria, today said that the heavy rainfall and landslides that started on August 26 and are still continuing have created a lot of destruction and devastation in Udhampur too.
Talking to reporters here, today he said no one has remained unaffected by this disaster. Almost every Panchayat has suffered damage—water pipelines are in terrible condition, electricity poles have been uprooted, and several transformers have sunk into the ground. Roads have also been washed away at many places, he added.
The district administration is doing everything it can to deal with this severe disaster and to reach the affected people. In Udhampur district, about 70 to 80 percent of the population lives in villages, many of which are in remote areas.
In addition, several NGOs have also extended help by distributing relief materials in the villages. “We, too, along with our colleagues, have visited remote areas to meet the affected families, understand their pain, and even in areas where roads were blocked due to landslides and vehicles couldn’t go, we reached on foot and provided some relief materials’’.
He said that, according to the data received from various areas around 1,500 houses (both kuchha and pucca) have been completely destroyed, leaving thousands homeless. About 10,000 more houses have been partially damaged and they too should be included in the list of fully damaged houses, because once a house develops cracks, it becomes uninhabitable.
Hundreds of cows, buffaloes, and other animals have also been rendered shelter less, making it difficult for their owners to take care of them. Additionally, thousands of kanals of land have become almost barren due to landslides, and crops have been completely destroyed. He demanded immediate relief for effected people.
Senior leaders Palwinder Singh, Vijay Kumar, Mohammad Anwar, Mohinder Kumar, Nateshwar Vaid, Rinku, Shyam Lal, Rohit Sarmal, and Arun Sethi were present in the press conference.
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