Heart wrenching tragedy on Kedarnath Trek: 5-Year-Old Girl Killed at Chirbasa, Himalayan Routes Turn Death Traps
Rudraprayag / Dehradun, 30 September 2026 – A heartwrenching tragedy occured in Kedarnath pedestrian route sending shivk waves all around. A hard lucked 5-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh was killed on Monday after being hit by falling boulders and muck on the Kedarnath pedestrian route near Chirbasa, about 2.5 km above Gaurikund. The girl was on pilgrimage with her family when a sudden slide from the hillside buried her.
The concerned officials said that the trek route has been completely closed after heavy rain damaged a large stretch at Chirbasa. SDRF, NDRF and DDRF teams evacuated around 1,500 pilgrims stranded there late Sunday night. Helicopter services are continuing.
Kindly recall that the Chirbasa tragedy is part of a growing pattern of boulder-fall deaths across Uttarakhand after aggressive hill-cutting for Char Dham all-weather road and other widening projects.
Environmental scientists say in the first five years of Char Dham construction alone, at least 200 landslides and nearly 200 deaths were reported due to construction and slides. In one monsoon season 25 major landslides blocked the Char Dham road.
On Sept 2025, at Sonprayag-Gaurikund (Munkatiya) two pilgrims were killed, four grievously injured when a huge boulder fell on their SUV. Locals said “boulders as big as a room are falling” and six new landslide zones had developed in Jungle Chatti after blasts for road cutting.
On June 2025, Yamunotri & Badrinath routes three pilgrims were tragically killed in 24 hours – a 12-year-old girl from Delhi near Bhairav Temple on Yamunotri track, and a woman near Patalganga tunnel on Badrinath highway when boulders hit vehicles.
In 2021-22, at Tehri, 7 labourers working on Char Dham project killed in landslide in Ukhimath-Bhiri.
If we talk of the most hectic Dehradun-Mussoorie highway, the arterial road that keeps collapsing vins dered as the main tourist lifeline, has become equally vulnerable. Just on Sept 1 this month, heavy rain claimed 7 lives across Uttarakhand and falling boulders, road subsidence and repeated landslides blocked and narrowed the Dehradun-Mussoorie highway, disrupting traffic near Mussoorie.
In 2024, a boulder fell on a hutment along Jharipani-Rajpur trek route near Mussoorie killing two persons, and a 20-year-old student was killed near DIT College on Mussoorie Road when a PG wall collapsed in rain.
Officials said on Sept 1, “The downpour disrupted traffic on the Dehradun-Mussoorie highway, where falling boulders, road subsidence and repeated landslides blocked parts of the arterial route near Mussoorie”.
The Rishikesh-Badrinath (NH-58 Tapovan-Maletha, Narendra Nagar-Chamba) route which was closed for indefinite periods in monsoon in 2021 due to incessant slides.
In the context of the -Mussoorie-Chamba, Uttarkashi-Gangotri, Pithoragarh-Tanakpur route – The Supreme Court-appointed committee in 2019 found that out of 174 slopes cut along Tanakpur-Pithoragarh stretch, 102 had become prone to landslides.
Experts blame unscientific vertical cutting, use of explosives in young, fragile Himalayas, lack of slope treatment, and climate change-induced heavy rain. Locals say check-posts remain open even after areas are declared sensitive, putting pilgrims at risk.
With the Metereological department issuing red alerts and 4-5 feet of fresh snow in higher reaches since Sept 26, the administration has again suspended Yatra on several routes, but the ecological cost of road widening continues to extract a heavy human toll.
