Five dead as wild winds hit Indian Kashmir
Pastor Dale Morgan
Five dead as wild winds hit Indian Kashmir*
SRINAGAR, INDIA, May 19 (AFP) May 19, 2007
Five people were killed and 30 injured as high wild winds downed power
lines and toppled trees in revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, police said on
Saturday.
The storm blew up suddenly late Friday, affecting large areas of the
state, much of which was plunged into darkness as winds brought down
electricity cables.
Nearly 300 people were rescued from Dal Lake in Srinagar, the summer
capital of Indian Kashmir, after the storm capsized their boats, police
said.
"Thanks be to Allah there were no casualties in the lake," police
officer Aziz Khan, who led the rescue operations, told AFP.
Five people were killed and 30 were admitted to hospital across the state.
The winds blew off roofs, damaging hundreds of houses. Big trees were
uprooted, some falling across roads and blocking traffic.
Most parts of the state were still blacked out on Saturday by power
outages caused by the storm.
Many flimsy shelters belonging to victims of the earthquake that
devastated the region in October 2005 were also damaged by the winds,
police said.
Kashmir is in the grip of a nearly 18-year-old separatist Islamic
insurgency against Indian rule that has left tens of thousands of people
dead.