Landslides near Pinola and Tayapul in the Chamoli district have closed the Badrinath national highway, or NH-58, leaving hundreds of pilgrims travelling to the sacred site detained for more than eight hours last week. The district emergency operation centre said that the highway was opened after 8 hours.
“The landslide occurred in Govindghat police station area in the early morning hours. As a result, long queues of vehicles were formed on the highway with large boulders blocking the road,” said Nand Kishore Joshi, district disaster management officer of Chamoli.
Many of the pilgrims were left without food and water, and district police had to distribute food packets and water bottles. The point where the landslide occurred is just 20-25 km away from subsidence-hit Joshimath town.
Officials said that in view of the weather alert till May 3, pilgrims who do not have confirmed hotel or guest house bookings at Kedarnath are being stopped at Srinagar in Pauri Garhwal in order to prevent chaos at the temple town.
DGP Uttarakhand, Ashok Kumar, said: “Considering the rain and snow alert issued by the met department,we are ensuring that the pilgrims numbers at Kedarnath are regulated and do not go beyond a limit where it is not possible for us to accommodate them in case of bad weather.” Light snowfall continued to lash Kedarnath during the day as a result of which chopper operations to the shrine town were impacted. The met centre has issued an alert of “thundercloud development along with light rain and snow in Kedarnath for the next three days”.