Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna while speaking to CNN-IBN's Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate, stressed that the kind of disaster in the state had never happened in the Himalayan history.
No authority or body could have handled the calamity of this scale and magnitude," he said.
The Chief Minister, however, admitted that Uttarakhand does not meet the norms of National Disaster Management. "Our jawans and officers are being trained," he said.
Bahuguna also admitted that to some extend there was a lack of personnel in the state.
The Chief Minister denied that his government did not act promptly and said "the magnitude of the calamity was so huge that not even the government of India had a force which could handle such a situation".
He also refuted report that his government had prior warnings about the flood and cloud burst. "We were not warned about any cloud burst," he said.
"We were very close to put up a Doppler radar but there were certain concerns by various ministries," he told CNN-IBN.
Bahuguna added that till now 556 bodies had been recovered and about 30,000 had been rescued. He also said he could not confirm the death toll as many bodies were feared to be buried under the debris. "Those who are stuck in certain areas in Uttarakhand, there is no threat to their lives, Bahuguna said.
The Chief Minister said that it would take another 15 days to complete evacuation as roads were damaged.
Bahuguna said that it would take a long time to rebuild the state as it had suffered a major damage. "No Kedarnath Yatra for at least next two years," he announced.
Helpline number for pilgrims in Uttarakhand are 0135-2710334/335/223
Army medical emergency helpline numbers -18001805558,18004190282,8009833388
ITBP HELPLINE numbers: 01124362892, 9968383478
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