Dehradun:
Forty one bodies of flood victims were today recovered from Haridwar, taking the toll in rain-ravaged Uttarakhand to over 200. Operations to rescue over 9,000 people, stranded in
Kedarnath and Badrinath, meanwhile have been stepped up with the deployment of 43 helicopters.
(Read)As the magnitude of the tragedy continued to unfold, Uttarakhand Principal Secretary Rakesh Sharma said casualty figures could be "shockingly high".
Haridwar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Rajeev Swaroop said 41 bodies had been recovered from Ganga river near Haridwar.
(Full coverage)Rescuers were earlier focusing on Kedarnath area, from where most have been evacuated, before shifting focus to Badrinath where 9,000 people are stuck, officials said.
Terming it as the "worst tragedy of the millennium", Agriculture Minister Harak Singh Rawat said, "It will take us at least five years to recover from the extensive damages caused to the entire infrastructure network in the Kedarnath area which is the worst affected."
Mr Rawat, who had visited Kedarnath, said that he spent five hours there and was shocked to see the extent of the damage caused to the buildings and the area adjoining the shrine.
"The centre of faith has turned into a burial ground. Bodies are scattered in the area. Only the sanctum sanctorum is intact," he said.
Thousands of people are still said to be stranded in various parts of the state that was hit by cloudburst and floods in the upper reaches that left hundreds of homes, rest houses and buildings in ruins and thousands of people missing.
In Himachal Pradesh, rescue operations are on to evacuate stranded people in rain-hit Kinnaur district with two dedicated choppers pressed into service even as reports of more people stuck in interior Pooh, Nako and Kaza areas poured in.
Two Air Force choppers and one state chopper had been deployed for evacuating the stranded but one of them has developed some problem.
"So far over 550 people have been airlifted but the number is steadily increasing with reports of more people struck at different places, pouring in. Helicopter sorties have also been planned for Pooh, Nako, Kaza and other interior places," officials said.