Several pilgrims still stuck without relief near Kedarnath

Having gone without food or water for nearly a week, scores of pilgrims are on the verge of death, while others who managed  to reach Sonprayag on foot have complained that rescue operations are yet to reach those stranded between Gaurikund and Kedarnath.

Many pilgrims have already died of hunger and many are searching for the dead bodies of their kin in the jungles over Gaurikund, Bhairavchatti, Junglechatti and Garurchatti, said several pilgrims, who somehow managed to reach Sonprayag from Kedarnath on foot. 

In Sonprayag, an ITBP officer said their first pedestrian rescue team has reached Gaurikund and has begun to shift pilgrims stranded in high altitudes to lower areas. The Indian Army, ITBP and NDRF have made temporary ropeways over the merging point of Songanga and Mandakini to rescue pedestrian pilgrims coming from Kedarnath.

Commandant of NDRF's eighth Battalion Manish Kumar who is supervising rescue operations, which started on Thursday in Sonprayag through temporary ropeways, said so far over 2500 pilgrims have been evacuated. He said the process is taking time because the ropes have to be changed after every couple of rounds due to presence of rough rocks in the area.

Sonprayag looks like a haunted town in the wake of the tragedy. Once the Mandakini river flew here 100 metres down but now it has turned into a heap of sand and boulders, a pilgrim said. Dozens of hotels, lodges and shops located here have turned into tons of debris lying all over the place. The trek for Kedranath used to begin from Gaurikund which lies 5 km beyond  Sonprayag, but now about 4 km long stretch between the two places has been badly damaged by the landslides triggered by the deluge. 60-year-old Gulabji Chaudhry and 45-year-old Bhanwar Singh from Ujjain (MP) were killed on Wednesday when they fell  from the hills while trying to grab the food and relief material being airdropped at Mandakini-Songanga sangam in Sonprayag.