Villagers in flood-hit areas of Uttarakhand in danger: Dr Tamilvanan

CHENNAI: Uttarakhand should now shift to protecting the villagers in the flood-hit areas, said former Madras Medical College director of medicine Tamilvanan, who arrived here on Saturday with 23 pilgrims. "There is no transport and movement of goods and the villagers' condition is bad," said Dr Tamilvanan, whose team left Chennai on June 13.
Headed by Balanda Sadhu, who runs an ashram near Vellore, they were heading to Adi Kailash when they were stranded in Gala before they were rescued from a place called Sosa after more than eight days."For 6-7 days we were in a school building with hundreds of pilgrims and villagers. The building was itself was in a bad condition," said Tamilvanan.
Later, Tamilvanan and his team walked several kilometres to Sosa in the Chaudans valley of Pithoragarh district. "We managed to contact a control cell for pilgrims from Tamil Nadu. The state government made arrangements for a helicopter that airlifted us from Sosa to Dharchula on June 26," he said.
Sadhu, who headed the team, said diseases were rife in the area. "Since our team had three doctors, we shared some medicines with the villagers. But their woes could continue as the areas are completely isolated from the outside world," he said.