Fifty workers have been pulled out of snow from the site of an avalanche-hit Border Road Organisation camp in the Mana village in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district, but four of them died on Saturday as rescuers raced against time to save the remaining five.
The avalanche hit the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp between Mana and Badrinath between 5:30 am and 6 am on Friday, burying 55 workers inside eight containers and a shed, according to the Army.
Thirty-three of them were rescued by Friday night and 17 on Saturday.
Rain and snowfall hampered the rescue efforts on Friday, and the operation was suspended as the night fell.
As the weather cleared up on Saturday morning, the Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel based in Mana resumed the rescue operation, District Disaster Management Officer N K Joshi said.
Six helicopters, including three of the Indian Army Aviation, two of the air force and one civil copter hired by the Army, have been engaged in the operation, Army PRO Lt Col Manish Shrivastava said.
Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres.
"Fifty labourers have been rescued out of which, unfortunately, four injured have been confirmed as fatal casualties while the search for the remaining five is underway," Lt Col Shrivastava said, adding the injured were being prioritised for evacuation.
Army officials said the rescue operation was being carried out mostly by the Army and IAF helicopters as the approach road had been blocked by snow at several points, making vehicular movement nearly impossible.
The priority is to bring the rescued workers to the Army hospital in Jyotrimath and look for the five workers still missing, they said.
Officials said 24 people were brought to the Army Hospital with injuries and one of them has been sent to AIIMS-Rishikesh.
According to the Army PRO, Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta GOC-in C Central Command and Lt Gen D G Mishra GOC Uttar Bharat have reached the avalanche site to monitor the rescue operations.
Lt Gen Sengupta said movement by road is impossible since it is clogged by snow. The Badrinath-Joshimath highway is blocked at 15-20 places, he said.
"There were eight containers at the BRO camp. Five of them have been found but three are missing in which the five labourers we are looking for could be trapped. A large number of the labourers rescued so far were found in the five containers," he said.
If weather permits, specialised RECCO radars, UAVs, quadcopters and avalanche rescue dogs will be pressed into service to trace the missing workers, Lt Gen Sengupta said. "Everything depends on the weather."
The Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority said they have sought ground-penetrating radar from Delhi to trace the three missing containers as the search for the missing workers continues on a war footing.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami did an aerial survey of the avalanche-hit site and reviewed the relief and rescue operations in Jyotirmath.
Upon returning to Dehradun, he said the relief and rescue teams have done a commendable job by rescuing 50 people so far. Officers have been instructed to carry on with the search for the five missing workers on a war footing, Dhami said.
Army sniffer dogs have been deployed to search for the missing containers and three teams of the Army are patrolling the area, the chief minister said.
More than 200 personnel from the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, Indian Air Force, district administration, health department and fire brigade are engaged in the rescue operations, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi also took an update on the rescue operation over the phone and assured all possible help from the central agencies, Dhami said.
About the medical treatment of those rescued, he said the injured workers were being treated at Army hospitals in Mana and Jyotirmath while AIIMS-Rishikesh and Srinagar Medical College have been put on alert.
He told reporters that with six to seven feet of snow accumulated in Badrinath and adjoining areas, there is a risk of more avalanches in the coming days. "During the aerial survey, I noticed that the flow of water in the Alaknanda river has stopped due to snow."
Construction work has been temporarily put on hold in the area and workers have been moved to safety, Dhami said and appealed to tourists not to travel to high-altitude areas for the next three days.
Laying on a bed at the Army's Jyotirmath hospital, Gopal Joshi of Narayanbagar in Chamoli district thanked Lord Badrinath for saving him.
Recounting the harrowing experience, he said, "Fresh snow was falling outside. As soon as we came out of the container house, we heard thunder and saw a deluge of snow hurtling towards us. I shouted to alert my companions and started running.
"Several feet of snow prevented us from running fast. After two hours, Indo-Tibetan Border Police rescued us," Joshi said.
Another rescued worker, Vipin Kumar of Himachal Pradesh, has an injury on his back. As soon as he heard the noise of the avalanche, he also left the container and started running.
"I was buried under the snow for about fifteen minutes. When the avalanche stopped, I was able to come out of the heap of snow," Kumar said and thanked god for the "second birth".
Three employees from Mathura who were also rescued said they came out of the containers after being informed about the avalanche. "We ran to save ourselves, but there were several feet of snow. We could not walk much and got stuck," one of them said.
Jagbir Singh from Punjab's Amritsar said, "The avalanche was so intense that we could not take our other companions along." He suffered minor injuries and has pain in his chest.
Meanwhile, family members of Ram Sujan Singh, a native of Rasra in Uttar Pradesh's Ballia who was working in Mana, said they have not received any information about him. He had gone to Chamoli in January 2024 and worked as a supervisor there, his son told PTI.
"They (the local administration) do not have any information about how my father is," he said, adding that he last spoke to his father on Monday.
Singh has been named in the official list of the 55 workers who were buried under snow. However, Ballia Superintendent of Police Omveer Singh said he was not aware of Ram Sujan Singh being among the trapped workers.
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