Thousands of people were evacuated in Kashmir on Thursday after the roaring Jhelum tore through the embankments at some places and inundated many localities.

A landslide hit temporary sheds at the Ratle power project in Jammu’s Kishtwar, trapping civilians who were later rescued after an operation involving volunteers
and officials.

The Valley was staring at a flood after incessant rain pushed the Jhelum and its tributaries above the danger mark on Wednesday. Many residents living close to water bodies in Kashmir spent a sleepless night as water kept surging despite improvement in the weather later on Thursday.

Chief minister Omar Abdullah, who visited some flood-affected areas, said there was no loss of lives but regretted that the damage to property, including paddy fields,
was heavy.

Omar accused his predecessors of doing little to take flood mitigation initiatives and said: “Eleven years of PDP-BJP and direct central rule have been wasted”.

“We will have to ask questions about what has been done in the past 11 years that in two days of rain, we felt endangered by floods,” he said.

The divisional commissioner of Kashmir, Anshul Garg, told reporters in Srinagar that 9,000 residents were evacuated after a breach in the embankments of the Jhelum in Zonipora of Budgam district in the morning, inundating several villages. Thousands more were evacuated from other places.

Garg expressed satisfaction that the water level in the Jhelum was receding because of the improvement in the weather. He urged residents to remain cautious as the water was still flowing above the danger mark.

Border fences damaged

Over 110km of fencing along the Pakistan border in Jammu and Punjab have been damaged and nearly 100 border outposts of the Border Security Force (BSF) inundated because of the rain and floods in the region, sources in the Union home ministry said
on Thursday.

Punjab is witnessing its worst floods since 1988, while Jammu has been hit by record-breaking rain as the Tawi river, popularly known as Surya Putri, has inundated hundreds of homes and several hectares of farmland.

The India-Pakistan border stretches 2,289km, with 192km in Jammu and 553km in Punjab. Floods have damaged about 80km of the fence in Punjab and 40km in Jammu.

The floods have also damaged or submerged about 30 BSF posts in Jammu and 65-67 in Punjab. Several forward defence points (FDPs) or high-ground observation posts of the force have also been impacted.

The border guarding force has begun a “mega exercise” to restore the fence and the border outposts so that the troops can return to them, a BSF official said.

SC query

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought the response of the Centre and nine other authorities on a plea for setting up a special investigation team or alternatively formulate guidelines to deal with recurrent cloudbursts, landslides and floods in the Himalayan states.