Garo Hills calamity
From Our Correspondent
TURA: The body of Naresh Das of Dobakol locality of Tura, who was buried alive inside his house in a major landslide three days ago, was finally recovered by rescue teams on Thursday evening pushing the death toll from the natural calamity in West Garo Hills district to nine.
Search and rescue teams comprising of civil defense teams deployed from Shillong and Tura retrieved the body from under a huge pile of mud and debris from his house compound.
With the recovery of the body of Naresh Das, the death toll from landslides alone in Tura town has risen to seven. Two other persons who were swept away by flood waters from Garobadha and Selsella area never made it out alive. Their bodies were retrieved on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, district authorities have released data on the number of villages and people affected by two days of continuous devastation storm which hit Garo Hills on I-Day.
As many as 7809 households comprising of 42,919 people under Ampati and Dadenggre Civil Sub-Divisions have been affected in one way or the other by the thunder storm. The worst affected is Garobadha area under Ampati and Selsella under Dadenggre sub-division.
As much as 194.5 quintals of rice, 41.54 quintals of dal and 99.4 quintals of salt have been distributed as relief for the affected people.
Items such as blankets,mugs, tarpaulins, towels etc are expected to be distributed on Friday.
On Thursday, ex-gratia payment for the families of the two drowned victims in Garobadha and Selsella were handed over by district officials. An amount of Rs 1 lakh was given to the families of Jarbish Sangma of Dodoretgre village in Selsella and Abinash Marak of Boiragipara village of Garobahda.
A similar ex-gratia amount is due to be handed to the family of Noresh Das on Friday.
At the same time, an additional amount of Rs 2500 each has been handed over to three persons — Lithon Saha of Nabinpally locality, Geeta Rani Goswami of Supari Bagan and Lotsing Sangma of Rongkha Chiring areas of Tura — who sustained grievous injuries at the time of the storm.