New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday appealed to the nation to contribute generously and to ‘stand shoulder to shoulder' with the distressed people of Jammu and Kashmir which has been the worst floods in six decades.
Describing the floods as unprecedented, Modi said that a large number of people have died or have been temporarily displaced.
Rescuers, including from the Army, distributed packets of cooked food, and pouches of drinking water to thousands of stranded people in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, especially in summer capital Srinagar, as over 130,000 people were rescued till Friday, officials said.
Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh assured that the Central government will not let money come in the way of providing relief to the state's people.
Singh told the media in New Delhi, "Approximately 200 are dead and 130,000 people have been rescued from the state."
Around 1,200 villages in the Kashmir Valley and 1,100 in Jammu region have been affected, he said.
"Around 400 villages have been totally submerged (in flood water). It is a national calamity. We will be able to assess the damage only after the water recedes," the Minister said to queries about the total damage due to the floods.
Asked about separatists instigating protests, Rajnath Singh said: "We have closed our eyes to the separatists."
Stating that the Central government has taken ‘immediate and proactive' action, he said the Prime Minister has announced Rs 1,000 crore for flood relief and rehabilitation.
Around 4.7 tonnes medicines and other health care materials including a mobile oxygen generation plant are also being transported from Delhi to the flood-affected area. More relief materials including blankets and tents, water bottles and food packets are being airlifted from Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Patna, Amritsar and Chandigarh.
Eighty nine transport aircraft and helicopters of Indian Air Force and Army's Aviation Corps have been pressed into service.
Army has deployed around 30,000 troops for rescue and relief operations, in which 21,000 troops are deployed in Srinagar region and 9,000 troops in Jammu region.
Armed forces personnel are distributing water bottles and food packets on a large scale and so far 3,98,000 litres of water, 31,500 food packets and over 748 tonnes cooked food have already been airdropped and distributed in the flood-affected areas.
