Mrs Pradhan smiled in relief as she settled in an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter after being winched up. Minutes earlier she dangled on the wire rope as her anxious children looked down from the chopper.
The four-member Pradhan family was rescued on Tuesday in one of the countless sorties that the IAF and the Army have made to evacuate people out of flood-hit Srinagar.
Mrs Pradhan said they had been stranded for four days. She thanked the soldiers who rescued her family profusely.
A camera on the helicopter that hovered over the red slanted roofs in Srinagar, captured images of more people trapped and waiting to be rescued. Among them a soldier who waved. He will be among the last to be brought out. The priority for the armed forces is to evacuate civilians.
The armed forces and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have rescued more than 76,000 people in Jammu and Kashmir, where heavy rain last week led to what Chief Minister Omar Abdullah described as the worst floods in a century.
Six lakh people are still said to be stranded in the state, where flood waters have now begun to recede with no rains since September 7.
Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag promised today that soldiers won’t return to barracks until the last man is helped.
