SRINAGAR: Hospitals in Srinagar started clean-up operations to resume routine functioning as soon as possible even as the number of deaths due to the floods in Jammu and Kashmir has climbed to 280, an official said.
Fifty-eight mobile health clinics have been set up in Srinagar even as water has been drained out from the G B Pant Hospital, L D Hospital and SMHS Hospital, officials said adding that four mobile hospitals have been pressed into service.
In the bone and joint hospital, functional for the past one week, one block has been converted into a gynae and obstetrics unit. The maternity hospital at Sanat Nagar is already working round the clock, the officials said and added that all district hospitals were running normally.
Health minister Taj Mohi ud Din directed the officials to begin anti-measles vaccination in the flood-hit areas on war footing. The SMHS Hospital has suffered losses of around Rs100 crore to its machinery and diagnostic equipment in floods.
At least 203 people have died in Jammu region and 77 in the Kashmir Valley. The loss in terms of private properties, businesses and infrastructure in the valley is more. “We have no means at present to arrive at a firm figure,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said.
Omar said it was not only public and private property that have been devastated by the floods. “Crops and horticultural produce have suffered huge losses. I will use all my influence and power to persuade the central government so that loans to farmers under the Kisan Credit Card scheme are waived off,” he said.
He said nobody could say how much time will it take to bring the state out of the crisis. The state government has said that the secretariat will start functioning from September 22.
Meanwhile, Akashvani’s Srinagar radio station popularly known as Radio Kashmir Srinagar resumed its routine broadcasts yesterday. The radio station had to suspend operations on September 7 when flood waters submerged its installations in Srinagar city trapping 12 staff members inside.
After two days, Radio Kashmir authorities had started an emergency FM broadcast service from atop the Shankaracharya hill. In the absence of other means of public communication including landline and mobile phones, locals were relying on Radio Kashmir to send messages to friends and relatives trapped in inundated areas.
After working round-the-clock the engineering and other staff of the radio station resumed routine medium wave broadcast services at 11am yesterday.
Also, Haj flights from Srinagar to Saudi Arabia, which were suspended due to floods, resumed. “Haj flights from Srinagar to Saudi Arabia have been resumed and two flights took off from the Srinagar International Airport carrying 275 pilgrims in each flight,” the chief minister said. He expressed hope that all the remaining Haj pilgrims would undertake the holy journey from Srinagar smoothly. IANS
