The blame game over the Uttarakhand deluge escalated on Sunday with the Meteorological department saying it had issued "timely" warnings of heavy rains and landslides but the state government claimed these were not "specific". Uttarkhand's MeT department Director Anand Sharma said they had issued advisories from June 14 for the next couple of days.
900 still to be evacuated
Fifteen days after the Uttarakhand disaster, 900 stranded pilgrims and locals in Badrinath were on Sunday left to be evacuated and 3,000 people remained missing, as authorities grappled with the grim task of extricating bodies from under heaps of debris and disposing them.
'We will never know the exact number of dead'
The exact number of people dead or washed away may never be known, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna said on Sunday as estimates of casualties in the disaster run to several thousands.
