Death toll rises to 3 in Ramban cloudburst, search on for 4 missing

STATE TIMES NEWS

RAMBAN/JAMMU: The body of a six-year-old girl was recovered in a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban district on Wednesday, taking the death toll in the incident to three, even as the search operation to locate the remaining four people continues, officials said.
The cloudburst occurred in Panchayats Kumate, Dhraman and Halla in Rajgarh tehsil late Monday afternoon, causing flash floods in Tanger and Dadi streams, they said.
Seven people of three different families were reported missing in the flash floods, Tehsildar Rajgarh Major Singh told PTI.
Shazia Banoo’s body was recovered by rescuers three kilometres downstream from her Dungar Dhandla village on Wednesday afternoon, the officials said.
Earlier, the bodies of two persons — Yasir Ahmad (20) of Gadgram and Khalid Ahmed Parihar (12) of Suli-Kumate — were retrieved on Monday and Tuesday.
Tehsildar Singh, who is supervising the rescue operation, said the rescue teams comprising police, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and local volunteers, are making all out efforts to locate four other missing persons — Yasir’s mother Naseema Begum (42) and six-year-old sister Shazia Banoo and Khalid’s mother Gulshan Begum (42) and eight-year-old sister Seerat Banoo. At least four government schools and a couple of other structures also suffered damages, while three parked private vehicles were washed away by the flash floods, the officials said.