SRINAGAR: An estimated 15,000 people were in the mountains near the Amarnath shrine when the rain struck on Friday evening. They were evacuated to the lower base camp of Panjtarni, officials said. Many were injured, some gravely, as a wall of water swept away around three makeshift kitchens and 25 tents for pilgrims at the base camp in Baltal outside the cave, at 13,500 feet above sea level.
“No pilgrim is left on the route.
About 15,000 people have been shifted safely till now,” an ITBP spokesperson said. The annual pilgrimage was suspended Friday and might resume in a day or two.
Military and private helicopters made several sorties to airlift bodies, the injured, and those left stranded in slushy treks to the cave.
Field hospitals were set up at Baltal, Panjtarni and Neelgrath base camps to assist the injured, while many with head and critical injuries were flown to Srinagar. A BSF spokesperson said paramilitary medics treated nine patients at their camp near the Neelgrath helipad.
An Amarnath shrine board official said 17 pilgrims were being treated at hospitals in Srinagar. According to Parvaiz A Koul, director of Srinagar’s Institute of Medical Sciences, lieutenant governor
Manoj Sinha visited the hospital and interacted with some of the patients. Seven pilgrims are admitted to the hospital.
Officials have identified seven of the dead: Three from Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar district and two each from Delhi and Pune. Pilgrims evacuated from the cave to Panjtarni thanked the
Army for its efforts. “The way our jawans saved us, I salute them,” said an elderly woman. According to an Army official, mountain rescue teams and lookout patrols with high-tech equipment and sniffer dogs have been deployed for the search and rescue. The 43-day yatra resumed this summer after two years of pandemic-induced suspension, while it was cancelled midway in 2019 ahead of the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of J&K into two Union territories. More than one lakh devotees have completed the pilgrimage so far.
With inputs from Sanjay Khajuria in Jammu