An ill-fated lightening struck in the otherwise peaceful lives of the relatively educated and employed residents of Kedarnath. Huge landslides and floods ravaged everything they had ever possessed. Having experienced such a dreadful nightmare, a question arose in the minds of these hapless victims: “Will life ever be the same again?” However, in the presence […]

Medical Camp at Lombgaon and Tvara – 11th July, 2013 As soon as we heard that the people of Twara are falling prey to dysentery in the village of Twara – we rushed over immediately – as this trend usually indicates an impending epidemic. 300 patients were treated at two medical camps on the 11th […]

Uttarakhand Flood Relief 10th July, 2013 Kalimath is the most heavily affected area around. Even today, one house slided down into the river across us before our eyes. We are going into the villages soon. A village Devli – comprising of 57 families – out of which 54 lost at least one member – invariably […]

Uttarakhand Flood Relief 9th July, 2013 It was raining heavily on the night of the 7th of July – the water level of the Mandakin river was rising alarmingly. We were stationed just a few feet from the raging river – even though a flood and cloud burst alert had been sounded. We tried to […]

Uttarakhand Flood Relief 9th July, 2013 The road to Guptakashi was in complete disarray after the rains. The main highway along the Mandakini river has been washed away, and vehicles have to take this only available alternatine route – the rains left the road full of slush – the vehicle was literally swimming in the […]

Uttarakhand Relief Work Camp at Rudraprayag – 6th and 7th July, 2013 The telemedicine unit finally arrived at Rudraprayag – overcoming extremely challenging obstacles all along the way. It was stationed at the Rudraprayag bus stand – and people came from all the neighbouring villages to avail of its facilities. The response was so overwhelming […]

Uttarakhand Relief We finally reached Gupt Kashi, another affected zone, after sliding down mountain screes and clambering up steep mountain paths on all fours, which were made all the more slippery due to yesterday’s rains. Here the problem was more of getting cut off from the rest of the world. Roads had been swallowed up, […]

Uttarakhand Relief Work Moved up to Rudraprayag from Srinagar. The road to  Rudraprayag is full of slush for many kilometers on end – the whole mountainside just slided down into the river carrying everything along with it. It’s the interiors of the mountains that need real help – the places where the spotlights of the […]

Uttarakhand Relief Work We decided to walk to nearby villages and see the situation firsthand as we felt we should receive before setting up a camp.  We made the mistake of taking the locals literally about how far the next spot was…. Close by meant hours, and a couple of kilometres meant 10 or more […]