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Airlifting of pilgrims goes on despite hiccups

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Seventytwo pilgrims stranded in Gunji near the Indo-China border in Pithoragarh district of Uttar Pradesh have been evacuated by Indian Air Force helicopters, a senior government spokesman told this reporter.

With 18 pilgrims (one of them dead) having been already airlifted on Tuesday, the authorities have been able to evacuate both the ninth and tenth batches of pilgrims returning from the Hindu shrine at Mansarovar lake in China. While the ninth batch had 43, the tenth batch included 47 pilgrims.

According to UP's principal home secretary Naresh Dayal, "This leaves the eleventh batch of 49 pilgrims that is expected to cross over from China back into Indian soil anytime now. Let's hope the weather will remain kind to us and permit us to get all stranded persons including pilgrims out of Gunji, as also to enable us to expedite the task of extricating the dead bodies from the debris at Malpa village." Situated at a height of about 2200 metres, Malpa is barely 50 km from the Indo-China border.

Dayal said, "It has stopped raining at long last in the hills, but breaches on account of landslides at many places have badly disrupted transport services in the UP hills." He added that it would take some time before the roads are brought back to shape. "We are making an appeal to all pilgrims intending to visit the Hindu shrines at Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri to defer their schedules by at least ten days, to spare themselves from getting stranded along the roads."

With the rivers beginning to recede, he was hopeful of some improvement in the flood situation as well.

Meanwhile, flood relief operations, also being carried out by the Indian army, are in full swing.

The 400-odd army personnel engaged in relief operations were hopeful of clearing the trek path, damaged due to landslides at several places. Major General A R Mukherjee, who is heading the relief operation codenamed Operation White Horse, was confident of providing a clear passage to all those who were willing to trek down the 100-km distance. According to him, "The main problem was between Malpa and Dharchula, where landslides had damaged the path beyond repair; so a circuitous route had to be paved thereby enhancing the usual 60 km distance between the two places to 83 km."

Armymen had also succeeded in putting up an aerial cable-way at two points across the Kali river, which is the main impediment in the movement of returning pilgrims. The cable-way will also facilitate carting of dead bodies still stuck under heaps of debris at Malpa.

With Malpa situated right on the bank of the Kali river that divides India and Nepal at that point, the alternative evacuation route created by the Indian army will touch Nepal at two points. "The cable-way will be used to carry people across the river into Nepalese soil after which they will have to cover some distance on the other side of the border before re-entering India through the next cable-way downstream," General Mukherjee elaborated.

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