As the Himalayan tragedy entered the 10th day Tuesday, the official toll rose to 822 with 155 more bodies being recovered from many places, while the unofficial number is many times higher, more than 8,000 more are still awaiting rescue from various Uttarakhand hills as fresh landslides, cloudbursts and torrential rains hampered evacuation efforts.
Rescue operations were suspended in Joshimath due to heavy rains while landslips in Tehri district left a woman and a child dead. There were also reports of fresh cloudbursts in Devprayag and heavy downpour in Augustya Muni in Rudraprayag. As many as 127 more bodies were recovered since Monday from the Kedarnath area. At least 15 corpses were found floating in the Ganges in different places in Uttar Pradesh including Muzaffarnagar, Bulandshahr and Bijnore, taking the official toll in the tragedy to 822, officials said.
Four choppers made sorties to Badrinath today and only 60 people were evacuated when the weather cleared around noon, officials said, adding over 8,000 are still to be evacuated. Foggy and overcast conditions in Dehradun delayed take off by choppers at Sahasradhara helipad and Jolly Grant airport but air rescue operations resumed with improvement in the weather towards the later part of the day.
The IAF, Army and Uttarakhand administration launched a massive operation to send logistics like firewood and fuel for conducting last rites of those killed in the worst-hit Kedarnath Valley. Multiple agencies undertaking relief and rescue operations are increasingly getting worried about the imminent spread of epidemics with rotting bodies hog the air in the temple town area as the tragedy is ten days old now.
Truck loads of dry wood and ghee have been despatched to Kedarnath and efforts are underway to conduct mass cremations strewn over the premises after their identification, post mortem and DNA preservation formalities. With the bodies already beginning to putrefy, the air is laden with a foul stench giving rise to fears of an epidemic outbreak in affected areas.
The Uttarakhand administration has asked police to ensure that the cremation process, which could not begin Monday due to rains, starts Tuesday at Kedarnath which was the worst hit by the calamity.
The IAF also landed its first big helicopter in the difficult Kedarnath area and dropped material needed for the mass funeral. Search and rescue operations in Kedarnath and surrounding areas are over for all practical purposes.
"No survivors remain in the jungles around Kedarnath. They have all been brought out," Ravinath Raman, nodal officer of rescue operations in Rudraprayag district, said in Guptkashi. With rain in the morning hampering rescue operations from Badrinath where the majority of pilgrims remain stranded, chief minister Vijay Bahuguna appealed to their relatives not to run out of patience, saying they are safe with enough supplies of food and and medicines made available to them.
As rescue operations get stretched in the upper reaches of Uttarakhand, the ITBP today decided to send in a fresh contingent of its troops and bring out those tired and exhausted. The paramilitary force is replacing close to 45 men with an equal strength in the areas of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Harshil and Gaurikund.
