Chisoti, Kishtwar (J&K): In the office of Jammu and Kashmir’s revenue department, housed in a tin-shed room in the flood-ravaged Chisoti village, a swarm of anguished men huddle around Kabeet Singh who is seated on a plastic chair.

“To register yourself, I need a bank account number, Aadhaar and ration card,” announced Singh, a patwari (revenue official).

After a meaningful pause, Singh lifted a long notebook from the table in front of him: “Don’t even think about lying to me. I am going to verify each claim. If I discover anyone has lied, his name will be struck off the list.”

On Sunday, August 17, four days after a 40-60-foot column of rainwater came crashing down into the village, killing at least 65 persons, mostly Hindu pilgrims on the way to Mata Machail yatra, dozens of poor stallholders who have suffered grave economic losses made a beeline for the office.

One by one, Singh asks the men circling him to tell him their names, addresses, phone numbers and the details of losses suffered by them while noting them down diligently in the notebook.

Barefooted Sumit Solanki, a resident of Madhya Pradesh who was among the registered stallholders, steps forward, “I have lost everything. My personal belongings were also washed away. I don’t even have a pair of shoes,” he told Singh.

On the table, a red file folder contains three lists. One is the list of “Injured Persons”, their parents' names, age, address and names of the hospitals where they were shifted for treatment and whether they have been discharged.

The second list of “Dead bodies” does not state the age of the victims. Instead, against the name of each body that has been recovered, it mentions the address of the hospital where the body has been preserved and, if it has been handed over to the family, the name of the person who received it.

“Handed over to shubam (sic),” the list states about Palak Sharma, a resident of Narwal in Jammu, who died in the tragedy.

“Handed Over”, it says of Sham Lal, another Jammu resident, without mentioning the recipient’s name.

A day after the tragedy, Happy Singh travelled more than 300 km from Bari Brahmna in Jammu to Chisoti after losing contact with his mother and aunt.

Singh tells The Wire that he learnt about the tragedy through social media and the two women were among a group of 18 people from one locality in Jammu who had come on the pilgrimage.

More than three days have passed without a breakthrough. “I don’t want any compensation from the government. I only want the bodies of my mother and aunt,” Singh tells the revenue official.

At least 23 dead bodies have not been identified yet among dozens recovered from the debris.

An official told The Wire that many victims were mutilated and their body parts were pulverised probably by the massive boulders which crashed down into the village along with sludge and floodwater on the fateful day.

Among the four missing CISF personnel who were posted in the village to regulate the yatra, two complete bodies and the leg of one have been recovered. “It (leg) was stuck between two huge boulders,” said an official. The fourth CISF man continues to remain missing.

The third list of  “missing persons”, which is also the longest, has the phone numbers of the relatives or acquaintances of 87 persons who have been so far reported missing to the authorities besides their regular details like names and addresses. This list has also been updated the most number of times.

“Body Recovered from GMC (Government Medical College) Jammu,” the list says about Happy Sharma, a resident of Bishnah, who was reported missing on the day of the tragedy. His body was found a day later.

Some 50 minutes later, the crowd of stallholders around Singh, the revenue official, starts to thin out. He said that the government has set up nine similar help centres in other parts of Kishtwar to help families who may not have yet reached out to the authorities.

“No one is being left out,” Singh said.

A narrow, serpentine road winds around the narrow Himalayan valleys of Kishtwar before coming to an abrupt end, some 200 metres from Bhot tributary of Chenab river  in Chisoti which was the epicentre of the tragedy.

Here, pilgrims disembarked from their vehicles on the fateful day and broke up for food or a hot cup of tea before continuing the pilgrimage.

Mata Machail yatra is the third most popular in J&K after Vaishno Devi yatra and Amarnath yatra. On the morning of the disaster, more than two lakh pilgrims had already embarked on the arduous hike to the revered Hindu deity who finds mention in the Vedic myths.

Around 5,000 pilgrims were set to embark on the nine-kilometre hike to the sacred temple of ‘Ma Chandi’, a journey undertaken by the Hindu sages in Kishtwar’s Machail area when it started to rain.

Within two minutes, the flood wrecked Chisoti. Singh, the revenue official and a resident of Kishtwar was among the first government officials who reached the village for documenting the trail of death and destruction.

The tin shed housing Singh’s office was one of the dozens of stalls which sprung up in Chisoti to cater to the pilgrims when the yatra started on July 25 this year. It is also one of the few fortunate structures which have escaped nature's fury.

With the calamity having flattened much of Chisoti, the shed has turned into an island of hope for the families who are searching for their loved ones; a solo notebook and some papers capturing the painful story of one of Jammu and Kashmir’s worst climate disasters in tone-deaf, heartless statistics.

Meanwhile, the roaring Chenab has left little hope for the families of missing persons and locals as the river appears to have swallowed them with little chance of recovery.

“Yesterday six bodies were recovered. Today, just one,” said Dharam Singh, a local whose house on the banks of the Bhot tributary was washed away. “The Chenab is ruthless. Once more time passes, we may only find the dismembered humans.”

The 974 kilometre river which snakes through the narrow Himalayan valleys in Kishtwar, Doda and Ramban districts before moving into the plains of Jammu has a notorious history of gulping its victims without a trace.

“Bodies vanish in its depths,” said a Seva Bharti volunteer, surveying the damage that has destroyed at least ten homes while three more were partially damaged.

While some anguished families of missing persons continue to wait, Meena Devi, daughter of 72-year-old priest Bodh Raj who led prayers at the Kali Mata temple in Chisoti, has given up hope.

“I don’t think I will see my father again,” she said.

Unlike the Tawi river in Jammu or Kashmir’s Lidder river which shrinks in autumn, the Chenab roars year-round. In monsoon, when the Machail Mata yatra coincides with peak flow, Chenab looks dreadful before exiting into the plains of Jammu and merging with the Indus in Pakistan later.

The August 14 floods swept away pilgrims, priests, vendors and even children. More than 70 are feared dead and dozens remain missing. Two girls aged 14 months and 14 years pulled out alive after eight and 24 hours respectively were the only miracles in the village of grief.

“Chenab rarely returns what it has swallowed,” said Roma Devi, a local who lost her granddaughter Arundhati in the tragedy.

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