Rescue of pilgrims stranded in Badrinath came to an end on Tuesday with about 150 of them being safely evacuated even as the administration struggled with the task of supplying relief to remote parts of Uttarakhand where foodgrain shortage has been reported in 170 villages.
The focal point of the multi-agency rescue operation for the last over four days remains the more-than-1.5-km-long "head-race tunnel" of the total 2.5 km of the tubular structure, as every passing minute is mounting concerns over the safety of those trapped inside.
The team consisted of trainee mountaineers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and their trainers.
The Indian Army has launched one of the biggest human rescue operations in Uttarakhand. On Thursday it mobilised troops for rescue and relief efforts, as it simultaneously reached out to over 8,000 people on all four different axes, viz, Rishikesh-Uttarkashi-Harsil-Gangotri axis; Rudraprayag -Kedarnath axis, Joshimath-Badrinath axis and Dharchhula -Tawaghat axis in Pithoragarh district, a statement said.
27 mountaineers perished in an avalanche in the mountains of Uttarakhand last week. The mountaineers were returning from a trek to the Draupadi's Danda mountain peak when disaster struck at 8.45 am in the morning.
The resumption of drilling with the auger machine is likely to speed up the rescue efforts.
Three children were killed and several others went missing after three houses collapsed in a village following heavy rains in Dharchula sub-division of the district, an official said on Monday.
A six-inch pipe has been laid at the Silkyara tunnel through which nutritious food and medicines could be supplied to the 41 labourers, trapped for over a week after parts of the under-construction structure collapsed following a landslide.
Dr Ravikant said the workers were thoroughly examined and their blood test, X-ray, and ECG reports were normal.
At least 22 pilgrims from Madhya Pradesh were killed on Tuesday and 8 others injured when a bus in which they were travelling fell into Ganga river at Kodiyala in Tehri district of Uttarakhand, police said.
The Congress on Tuesday sought to differentiate Rahul Gandhi's visit to flood-hit Uttarakhand from that of Narendra Modi, saying he is not going for "photo-ops" even as it faced the Bharatiya Janata Party attack for deriding the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's rescue efforts.
Groups of relatives have gathered at the Tapovan tunnel, hoping that their loved ones will emerge alive from its mouth.
Former Karnataka power minister Shobha Karandlage has been stuck in her car since the last three days. She is trapped around 30 kilometres away from the Tehri dam in Uttarakhand.
Here is the timeline of the disaster and the rescue efforts that followed.
'We are hoping that in three-four days we will surely get a positive result.'
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 incident occurred near Gween village in the district when the overloaded private bus, on its way to Ramnagar, fell into the 200-metre-deep gorge, Pauri Superintendent of Police Jagat Ram Joshi said.
Stepping up relief and rescue operations in Uttarakhand, the Union defence ministry has deployed more than 45 choppers belonging to the Army and the Indian Air Force there along with more than 10,000 troops in the rain-ravaged parts of the hill state.
Politics came into play over the Uttarakhand floods as Narendra Modi ignored suggestions given by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde that chief ministers should not visit the flood-hit region as it hampers rescue operations.
It rejected the government's contention that there are no provisions to declare tragedies as a national calamity.
Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has made a veiled attack on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on the issue of rescuing Uttarakhand victims from his state alone, saying no politician should be parochial in his approach while saving lives of the stranded people.
The Uttarakhand government will not allow any state to make unilateral efforts to evacuate its citizens stranded in the hill state, a move that comes in the midst of war of words on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's claim that he had rescued over 15,000 people.
Boring through the rubble of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel was put on hold again on Thursday apparently after cracks appeared in the platform on which the drilling machine rests, in a fresh hurdle to the rescue of 41 workers trapped inside for 11 days.
'These are people whom very few give importance and they were doing a mammoth job for the nation.'
Water level of the river Kali has been continuously rising and reached the danger level.
Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde led the nation in paying tributes to the twenty bravehearts, who died in Tuesday's chopper crash while rescuing stranded people in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand.
The next two days are very crucial in terms of rescuing the maximum number of pilgrims and tourists stranded in rain-hit Uttarakhand as heavy showers may come anytime, a senior official said.
Dominic Xavier salutes the multi-agency teams engaged in heroic rescue operations after a glacier burst-triggered deluge unleashed Nature's nightmare on the people and villages in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district.
IAF pilots and crew dodged low hanging clouds, mist covered hills, steep valleys and landed on broken landing grounds to rescue civilians in Wayanad. In one mission, they had to descend vertically to get close to the survivors. IAF flew over 80 missions, saving lives and giving hope. This is how they did it.
A total of 86 metres have to be drilled vertically to prepare an escape passage. Pipes of 1.2 metres in diameter have to be laid vertically through the top of the tunnel on which work began on Sunday as a second option to reach the stranded labourers.
The statement by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) comes in the backdrop of collapse of under-construction Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarkashi on November 12.
Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest fuel retailer, positioned adequate stocks of all petroleum products -- petrol, diesel, kerosene and LPG in the state.
Of the 16 bodies retrieved, 14 are of trainees and two of instructors, NIM said in a bulletin.
National Disaster Response Force teams were rushed from Delhi to the affected areas in both Pithoragarh and Chamoli districts to help in the rescue operations along with along with State Disaster Response Force, Sashastra Seema Bal and Indo-Tibetan Border Police and local agencies, officials said.
The worker said there was a natural source of water in the tunnel but they had no clothes to change.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) is expected to release its preliminary report this week on the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad, which resulted in the deaths of at least 260 people. The investigation is ongoing, with the help of foreign experts, and the black box and voice recorder data are being analyzed.
Making a statement in the House "regarding an avalanche in Chamoli District of Uttarakhand", the Union minister said these inputs were based on the information received till Monday 5 pm from the state government.
After a brief suspension due to bad weather early in the morning, the rescue operations in rain-hit Uttarakhand resumed on Sunday on a war footing to evacuate 22,000 pilgrims still stranded in high altitude areas amid a MeT department warning of light to moderate rains in the region from Monday.
The auger machine was facing repeated obstructions in the rubble in the past few days.
Incessant rains unleashed more death and destruction on Monday in parts of north India, with 37 people killed in landslides and other rain-related incidents in the last two days even as the Army and NDRF teams stepped in to intensify the relief and rescue operations.
