Anand Soondas, TNN | Jun 26, 2013, 05.58 AM IST
DEHRADUN: Six senior local doctors, part of the first medical team that left for Kedarnath on June 19, have returned shocked by the magnitude of human suffering and the unbelievable lack of government preparedness in the face of such a crisis.
Dr Harish Kohli, an orthopedic, was airlifted to Guptkashi with the five others after tragedy struck Uttarakhand on June 15. "There was no way we could reach the epicenter of the devastation and we set up camp there itself," he says, back in his hospital. "What we saw was staggering."
Kohli, who was there with two other orthopedics, a plastic surgeon, a general physician and an anesthetist , says communication lines were down and they used word of mouth to spread the message to Gaurikund, Phata, Kedarnath and nearby areas that help was at hand.
"Soon, there were waves of people," says Dr Gulshan Malhotra who accompanied Kohli. A father carried his son, who had his right leg smashed, on his back. He had trekked two hours. The doctors rushed to him, but the boy died. The father stood there looking at the doctors. He wasn't accusing them. For a long time he didn't move.
They saw a woman with her pelvis crushed, brought in by her crying husband. She was alive when they left. The man told the doctors they had been married for just six months.
"You can't imagine what's going on," says Kohli. One doctor shows the video of a boy who says how his starving brother died after eating poisonous leaves. "I saw screaming children with severed legs and hands. A child, not more than 13, said he hadn't had water for five days. One man stumbled upon a water bottle dropped by army choppers, but he was too weak to open the cap. He left the bottle behind as he didn't have the energy to carry it."
Of the 600 they attended to, the doctors say almost 500 were dehydrated , stressed and starving. The rest either had head injuries or shattered bones. Kohli says many came with their wounded flesh rotting. Five bodies piled up in a few hours. The doctor is afraid there may be a pandemic triggered by the stink and the polluted water. As if that was not distressing enough, the doctors heard of rapes and molestations. "Some local residents were sure it happened," Kohli says.