Five deaths of people returning on foot from Kedarnath at Mankutiya between Sonprayag and Gaurikund after they were buried under the huge landslide debris

Tragedies have become synonymous with the hilly areas especially Uttarakhand where deaths during monsoons , especially, have become order of the day. Deaths by landslides, cloud bursts, flash floods, catastrophic disasters and excessive rains have become so common that people don’t take things seriously considering these tragedies as something that are bound to happen during monsoons, come what may. During the current monsoon season the natural calamities like cloud bursts incidents , boulder falling on running vehicles, villages being wiped out, house being washed out by massive landslides, roads literally caving in and being wiped out due to massive rains killing several people via accidents have become quite a common feature. If we take a look at the last year’s conservative statistics last year about 245 pilgrims, tourists or local inhabitants have died during the Char Dham Yatra. What is shocking to note is the fact that only in the Kedarnath Dham route the different modes of casualties amounted to 120 numbers. In addition the other deaths include 46 on Badrinath dham route, 30 on the Gangotri Dham route and 39 on the Yamunotri Dham route. These tragic deaths may be through accidents of vehicles falling on deep gorges, through natural calamities , through boulder deaths and other means. Meanwhile, the death toll that occurred at Mankutiya between Sonprayag and Gaurikund at late evening in Monday have reached to five numbers. The most tragic part of these five deaths is that all of them were returning from Kedarnath on foot not know about the tragic death in store for them. All the five were buried under the huge debris of the land slides. The NDRF and SDRF team of committed volunteers with the local police had a hard day clearing the huge debris and retrieving the dead bodies shocking buried under the massive landslide. Traffic alongwith the route have been resumed as around 150 metres of the road on this stretch was demolished due to the heavy landslide on July 31 st. This tragedy of five deaths of trekkers returning from Kedarnath have shook everyone from inside with the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami extending his deepest condolences on hissicial media handle X in Hindi writing : Very sad news was received that some passengers were buried under debris between Sonprayag-Munkatiya (Rudraprayag). The local administration, NDRF and SDRF teams are engaged in relief and rescue operations. I am also in touch with the concerned officials and monitoring the rescue operation. I pray to Baba Kedar for the safety of the travelers. The pilgrims who died in this shocking tragedy are Durgabai Khapar (50) from Ghat district in Madhya Pradesh, Titli Devi (70) from Vaidehi village of Nepal’s Dhanwa district, Saman Bai (50) from Dhar, Madhya Pradesh and Bharat Bhai Niralal (52) from Surat, Gujarat.