Omar Abdullah takes stock of windstorm damage in Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu, Mar 22 (ANI): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday took stock of the damage caused by a severe windstorm earlier in the week.ddressing legislators in the Jammu, Abdullah gave the details of the destruction caused by the windstorm, which crossed the barometer levels of a cyclone with winds hitting 35 knots.

"If we talk about Kashmir, three deaths, one each in the districts of Anantnag, Pulwama, Gardarbargh and 29 injured, 95 residential houses fully damaged, 11, 641 residential houses severely or partially damaged.

A total of 4074 non-residential structures partially damaged, 42 government buildings and schools partially damaged, along with 10 partially damaged houseboats. Whereas, in Jammu no deaths were reported with five injured, and 36 residential houses fully damaged," said Abdullah.

Declaring it as a natural disaster, Abdullah added that Minister for Revenue and Relief Raman Bhalla had left for an aerial tour of the affected areas.

"I had called for a meeting on this matter in Srinagar on March 20 and gave the orders to start the relief process as soon as possible. This morning, the state minister for revenue and relief left for an aerial tour of Punj, Anantnag, Kupwara, Bandipur and Srinagar. Hereby, at this moment, this has been declared as a natural calamity. And as soon as these orders are released by the secretariat, the relief work will reach the affected people," he said. (ANI)