Shikaras become rescue boats on Kashmir’s flooded paradise

A small army of shikara owners, who normally ferry holidaymakers around the lake using only a wooden pole, have spent the past five days rescuing people stranded on sinking houseboats and bringing them to safety.

Kashmiri boatmen row their shikaras on the flooded Dal Lake as they assist in the evacuations in Srinagar, India. A small army of boatmen, who normally ferry holidaymakers around the lake, have spent the past week rescuing those stranded on sinking houseboats and bringing them to safety. Punit Paranjpe / AFPShow less

Bhuvan Bagga

SRINAGAR, INDIA // Tanvir Ahmed Sheikh sat slumped in his shikara wooden taxi boat on the banks of Indian Kashmir’s Dal Lake, exhausted by deadly floods that have ravaged this normally tranquil tourist haven.

Mr Sheikh, 19, and a small army of fellow shikara owners, who normally ferry holidaymakers around the lake using only a wooden pole, have spent the past five days rescuing people stranded on sinking houseboats and bringing them to safety.

“The women especially have been very afraid, and those first few hours were really dangerous,” Mr Sheikh said as he took a breather in his boat, rocking in the swollen currents.

His break was cut short as two approached to ask if he could row them out onto the lake to check on relatives feared stranded.

“There are so many people to help,” said Mr Sheikh, who has been snatching a few hours’ sleep at a mosque when he can. “It’s not humanly possible to evacuate everyone.”

Dal Lake, dubbed Kashmir’s “Jewel in the Crown”, is home to hundreds of ornate houseboats which date back to the colonial era when the British sought a Himalayan refuge from Delhi’s stifling summer temperatures.

The Beatles’ George Harrison learnt to play the sitar on one of the “floating palaces” that are moored to the side of the lake and are overlooked by Mughal gardens and snow-capped Himalayan peaks.

While the numbers of western tourists have fallen off in recent decades as result of the unrest in Kashmir, it has become increasingly popular with Indian holidaymakers — many of whom were caught unawares on the lake when the flooding began at the weekend.

Triggered by heavy monsoon rains, the floods have killed hundreds of people in both the Indian and Pakistan-controlled sectors of Kashmir, which has been divided and claimed by both sides since independence.

Although the exact scale of the disaster remains unclear, the floodwaters have swallowed whole villages and left much of Indian Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar underwater.

Thousands of soldiers and other emergency workers, using boats and helicopters, have been racing around the clock to rescue those still marooned and to provide water, blankets and other relief.

But on the banks of Dal Lake, Srinagar residents singled out the shikara owners for praise, saying they had been the ones to step up when rescue officials failed to appear.

“There has been no help here. Nobody has managed to reach here,” Nasir Ali Khan said angrily. He said he saw at least five houseboats break up and sink in the rushing waters.

“All of the rescues have been done by these young men rowing shikaras.”

A ride on a shikara, a boat similar to the gondolas of Venice, is usually a magical experience for passengers as they gaze out towards the mountains and breathe in the fresh air.

But on a tour around the lake on Thursday, houseboats were half sunk and dozens of tourist shops on the banks were flooded, their wares ruined.

Hundreds of people — resident families with children, as well as tourists — have been camping in the open on the edges of the expanded lake, waiting for help to arrive.

Others, who initially fled to higher ground, have returned in the hope of hearing news of relatives and friends still feared stranded on the lake or worse, and to check on their homes and livelihoods.

Mustaq Ahmad said he raced his wife, three children and a couple who were holidaying on his houseboat onto his shikara when the first surge of water hit.

“I said: ‘Leave your belongings and get on,’” Mr Ahmad said.

“We just went along with the current, racing for about a kilometre until we finally hit dry land.”

Ghulam Hassan, who has lived on the lake’s banks all of his 79 years, said he feared the floods would prove more devastating than the last major ones in the 1950s.

“This is the most ferocious flood ever,” he said.

“I don’t understand what happened this time. But I really fear many people have drowned.”

* Agence France-Presse