Uttarakhand rain deaths hit 52, tourists leave in hordes

DEHRADUN/NAINITAL: The death toll in rain-ravaged

Uttarakhand

touched 52 on Wednesday while at least five people are still missing, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) has said.

Union home minister Amit Shah is scheduled to reach the state capital of Dehradun on Wednesday night to take stock of the situation. He will be conducting an aerial survey of Kumaon which is the worst-hit, with 28 casualties reported from

Nainital

district alone.

In Champawat district, 11 deaths have been reported in rain-related incidents in the past three days while Almora district has recorded six deaths. In Udham Singh Nagar district, two people lost their lives while

Pithoragarh

and Bageshwar have registered a death each. Three people have died in Pauri district as well.

Among those whose bodies were found on Wednesday was a postman, Chanar Ram, in Bageshwar who was swept away by the waters of Bhadrapati river. It took four hours for police to recover the body. In another search operation, the body of a hotel worker was recovered in Nainital. Manoj Kumar (34) was on a motorcycle when he was washed away while returning from Nainital to his native village of

Chopra

on Tuesday.

Search and rescue operations continued on Wednesday with the Army distributing food and essentials to those affected by the disaster in Kumaon. Ashok Kumar, director general of police (Uttarakhand), told TOI that 7,500 personnel are engaged in rescue efforts across the state. “In the last three days, rescue personnel have evacuated and rescued approximately 8,000 people,” he said. Three choppers of the Indian Air Force have been deployed for rescue operations.

As skies cleared up in some areas of the state, the Char Dham yatra — which was halted on October 18 — was resumed in

Kedarnath

and

Gangotri

. The Badrinath highway, however, remained blocked from landslide debris. About 5,000 devotees reached Kedarnath on Wednesday as the pilgrimage picked up after a halt of two days. The yatra in Yamunotri was allowed on Tuesday and 2,500 pilgrims have turned up at the revered shrine since then.

While Char Dham towns witnessed an influx of tourists, Nainital saw a mad rush of outgoing tourists who left the town in hordes after being stranded in their hotel rooms for days. The town had been cut off from the rest of the state as all three routes to it were blocked by landslides. Two roads were cleared of debris and opened for traffic on Wednesday, said sub-divisional magistrate Prateek Jain.

(Inputs by

Kautilya Singh

, Pramod Dalakoti & Sonali Mishra)