Punjab: The Indian Army on Wednesday, carried out a daredevil rescue, evacuating stranded individuals from flood-hit areas in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.
Dramatic visuals of the rescue operations show Army choppers hovering low over a tiny patch of land completely cut off by floodwaters, airlifting people to safety. Nothing else was in sight around the marooned group except the vast expanse of water.
Indian Army carried out the rescue operations in Lassian, Gurdaspur on Wednesday, after floodwaters began rising rapidly and threatened lives in the area.
Three Cheetah helicopters from the Army Aviation Units carried out multiple shuttles in extreme flying conditions, successfully evacuating 27 stranded people, the Army stated in a post on X.
Yesterday, the Indian Army helped in averting another major tragedy -by evacuating 25 people sheltered inside a building – just hours before it came crashing down and was swept away by the floods.
Punjab floods
Punjab witnessed a massive flood situation following the relentless downpour over the last few days, with many claiming the situation is similar to the 1988 floods, with the swollen Sutlej, Beas and Ravi rivers inundating large tracts of farm lands and villages along their banks.
The worst-affected villages are in Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Fazilka, Kapurthala, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur and Amritsar districts.
Earlier, NDRF and the BSF also conducted a rescue operation for 381 students and 70 teachers at the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Gurdaspur’s Daburi, who were stranded due to flooding in the school campus and surrounding areas.
On Thursday, the Amritsar district administration, with the help of the Army, evacuated several people, including children and elderly, who were stranded in the swamped villages of Ramdas area.
Amphibious all-terrain vehicles, or ATORs, and boats were deployed to rescue stranded people in the area inundated by the rising waters of river Ravi.