This Article is From Aug 10, 2010

Leh still cut off, tourists stranded

Leh: Sheehan Dsouza came to Leh from Mumbai along with her brother and parents last week. She was in a hotel when the flood fury hit the town.

Terrified, Sheehan is desperate to go home but she has not been able to get into a flight yet.

"The planes just come and go and I don't know what is happening. I just want to get out of here," she says.

Canadian tourist Trevor Wishart was trekking here in the mountains before the floods. After the death and destruction of the floods in Leh and around, he wants to go to Himachal Pradesh now for trekking.

But he can't get a plane ticket.

"I am waiting for a plane ticket here," says Trevor.

The airlines have evacuated around 4,000 passengers since Friday out of Leh, but thousands of tourists are still stranded here. Many of them come to the airport everyday and wait the whole day for a plane to take them away.

"They need to be patient as its crisis situation," says Omar Abdullah, J&K Chief Minister.

It is the fear of Friday's flash floods that haunts the minds of the tourists and other visitors here and that is why thousands of them want to flee this place as soon as possible. And despite additional fights, airlines are not copying with the rush.
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