After chairing an emergency meeting with senior officials to discuss the situation, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said that heli services on the Char Dham route will remain suspended for two days, as the weather is bad and the safety of the passengers is the government's top priority.
The recent helicopter crash near Kedarnath, in which seven lives were lost, has proven yet again that aviation regulatory authorities have not learnt lessons from similar air mishaps in the challenging Kedar valley and have done little to improve flying conditions.
Five pilgrims and a pilot onboard a helicopter had a narrow escape when the aircraft on its way to Kedarnath made an emergency landing on the highway in Rudraprayag district on Saturday after developing a technical snag during take-off, officials said.
Soon after the crash on Sunday, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami held an emergency meeting and asked senior officials to prepare a strict SOP (standard operating procedure) for heli services in the state, making a thorough check of the technical condition of the choppers mandatory.
Rudraprayag District Disaster Management Officer Nandan Singh Rajwar told PTI that the accident took place above the forests of Gaurikund amid poor visibility due to bad weather.
The Indian Air Force's Chinook and MI17 helicopters on Friday joined the rescue operations in Uttarakhand to evacuate over 500 pilgrims stranded on the rain-ravaged trek route to Kedarnath, with 10 of them being airlifted in the first round.
Locals hold gradual land subsidence responsible for the fissures and attribute it to the widening of the national highway, violation of norms in construction works related to mandi parishad, erosion caused by the Pindar river and unsystematic flushing out of rainwater.
A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Guptkashi to Kedarnath crashed on Tuesday amid poor visibility and seven people on board are feared dead.
'The entire public needs to be evacuated immediately. Any day, the entire town can collapse.'
Search and rescue operations in Kedarnath and surrounding areas is over for all practical purposes, officials said in Son Prayag. No more survivors have been found and defence and paramilitary personnel are now wrapping up their mission.
Bad weather returned to Uttarakhand on Monday with fresh spell of rains and landslips in the higher reaches of Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts grounding rescue operations by choppers in the state where 10,000 survivors are waiting to be evacuated.
The sanctum-sanctorum of the Himalayan shrine has been spruced up under the supervision of a team of Kedarnath-Badrinath Committee and administrative officials.
Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwani Choubey and his family, who were stranded in a temple in Kedarnath, have been rescued and brought to Dehradun by a helicopter on Thursday.
Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday said that he had asked the Uttarakhand government not to allow any VIP to land in the flood ravaged areas in the state to pre-empt any disturbance to relief work.
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday visited the rescue camp in Guptkashi and talked to locals and officials about the status of relief operations in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand. The locals narrated their woes to Gandhi, who assured them that government will soon take steps to help them.
The Uttarakhand government on Tuesday put the number of missing people in last month's tragedy at 5,360 and announced that pilgrimage to Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines will resume by September 30 even as fresh rains pounded several parts of the state and claimed 11 lives.
Bihar Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ashwani Choubey and his family, who were stranded in a temple in Kedarnath, have been rescued and brought to Dehradun by a helicopter on Thursday.
With no information coming from the administration about their missing kin, they are preparing to visit Kedarnath and Rambada and scour tonnes of debris lying in these areas in search of the bodies of their relatives so that they can perform their last rites.
She waited for the call promised by her son in the evening but only got the heartbreaking news that Indian Air Force pilot K Praveen was no more.
Delhi-resident Navneet Mishra is leaving no stone unturned, scouring towns, hotels, camps, hospitals and bus stops in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand in a frantic search for 11 of his family members and friends.
With weather clearing up, relief operations on Sunday gained momentum in Uttarakhand as the government came out with a roadmap for clearing tonnes of debris and extricating bodies in Kedarnath and adjoining areas ravaged by flash floods over a month ago.
Inclement weather badly hampered cremation of bodies and removal of debris at Kedarnath on Friday besides affecting distribution of relief in over 200 segregated villages where people have lost their homes and are faced with acute foodgrain shortage.
There are lessons to be learnt from the Uttarakhand tragedy. Topping the list is the need to immediately stop mindless construction activity in the Himalayan hills, says Nitish Priyadarshi
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