File Photo: A truck being washed away in the floods that struck Uttarakhand in June 23
For identification of victims of last year's Uttarakhand floods tragedy, the Hyderabad-based Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics and the Uttarakhand government are trying to contact relatives of missing persons and obtain blood samples for DNA matching.
The CDFD had received biological samples of 550 bodies (over 5,000 are believed to have perished in flash floods) and blood samples of 200 claimant relatives from Uttarakhand government since September for identifying victims through DNA profiling, CDFD Director J Gowrishankar said today.
The CDFD had completed DNA profiling of 400 of these samples. In 150 cases, profiling could not be done because of the decomposition.
"Preliminary analysis of results (after match-making with blood samples of relatives) has been able to establish identity of 20 victims," he said.
Gowrishankar said CDFD and Uttarakhand government would soon put out an advertisement to reach out to relatives of the thousands of missing individuals to give blood samples for DNA testing and matching with DNA profiles of 400 victims.
"We expect relatives of over 5,000 missing individuals to be tested for DNA and then we can match that with the profiles of 400 victims," he said.
"After obtaining blood samples of relatives, we can complete the identification of the all 400 victims whose DNA profile we have completed."
According to him, the Uttarakhand government recovered about 600 bodies and since September 2013, the CDFD received 550 biological samples (from these bodies) for DNA testing.