Mumbai: The National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) on Tuesday said its personnel saved over 50,000 lives during Kashmir floods last year and helped prevent an epidemic in the region.

"Due to excessive rains, the four main tributaries of river Jhelum overflowed. I was camping there for 15 days. We could see from aerial survey that Jhelum and Dal Lake looked alike. There was no difference between the river and the lake. Such was the scenario," NDRF chief O P Singh said while addressing a symposium on disaster management at the 102nd Indian Science Congress held here.

Jammu and Kashmir had witnessed the worst deluge of the century last year in September which claimed 283 lives, as per official figures, and caused damage to property worth Rs 44,000 crore in the Valley.

"Our priorities were to rescue people, to coordinate with Army in rescue operations. We were getting distress calls and we recorded almost 18,000 calls. We also got SMSes and emails," he said.

Making use of technology, Singh said they responded to most of the calls and messages and used Google person finder to trace people and ensured they were rescued.

"We saved over 50,000 people, and recovered bodies, and distributed nearly 90 tonne of relief material and attended to 10,000 patients in our mobile hospitals. NDRF had set up five medical camps," he said.

"In inaccessible areas, we rushed medical and paramedical staff via inflatable boats and made sure that personnel went inside localities and tried to save people and give them medicines," he said.

The officer said that challenges before the local administration included restoration of public utilities, supply of essential items and most importantly to remove pile of garbage and animal carcasses.

"When our jawans were fighting and giving services to people, we also tackled to dispose animal carcasses that were floating all over. That was the reason why we were sure that no epidemic breaks out," he said.