August 6th, 2010 – A cloudburst hits Leh-Ladakh, India causing torrential downpours and massive flash flooding. The District Commissioner’s office put the final body count at 192 people ranging from children to grandparents. Villages outside of Leh were the most effected, particularly Choglamsar. Hospitals and schools are washed away and buried under feet of mud. Fortunately, the Indian Army lent a great deal of aide with relief efforts, recovering bodies, setting up refugee camps and clearing mud out of buildings.
However, the Solar Colony Refugee Camp is still hosting 158 families who are struggling to complete their new homes before winter begins. The most pressing need is for each family to construct their home before the end of November and install some kind of heating system – either a traditional bukhari or electric heater. The short-term goal of the Leh Flood Relief Project is to make bukharis available to any family that needs one in their new pre-fabricated homes.
In the long-term, the Leh Project is setting the foundations to start a community center and youth hostel in order to provide housing and resources to children who lost a parent to the cloudburst. The community center would provide education to these disadvantaged children, both from the Solar Colony and surrounding effected villages. A youth hostel would provide housing for these children in order to ease their access to schools and other resources only available within the city of Leh.
Leh Flood Relief Project 