Char Dham accident: Bodies of 5 pilgrims recovered from the highway landslide site

The landslide on Char Dham hit a 150-meter stretch of the Kedarnath highway in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag district.

A landslide hit a 150-meter meter stretch of the Kedarnath highway on Monday evening, leading to the loss of five lives. It hit the highway in Uttarakhand’s Rudraprayag district between Sonprayag and Munkatiya. The rescue operation resumed on Tuesday morning. Rescuers recovered the bodies of four more pilgrims, taking the toll from the incident to five.

Massive landslide on Char Dham highway.

Bodies of 5 pilgrims were recovered from the highway landslide site at Char Dham. Officials said that some more people may still be buried under the debris. Nandan Singh Rajwar, District disaster management officer, identified those dead as Gopal, 50, Durgabai Khapar, 50, Samanbai, 50, from Madhya Pradesh, Nepal’s Titli Devi, 70, Bharat Bhai, 52, a resident of Gujarat’s Surat. The injured Jeevach Tiwari, 60, from Nepal, Manpreet Singh, 30, from West Bengal, and Chhagan Lal, 45, of Madhya Pradesh, were undergoing treatment.

The rescue operation was halted for some time.

Heavy rainfall and continuous falling of boulders disrupted the rescue operations. Rajwar said, “For the safety of the rescuers, the search and rescue operation was stopped in the [Monday] evening and resumed around 6.30 am.”

Pushkar Singh Dhami, the Chief Minister, offered his condolences to the families who lost their loved ones and said that rescuers were immediately dispatched to the scene. “The injured were immediately sent to Sonprayag through ambulance for treatment,” he said.