Manimahesh yatris narrate their experience after returning home

Shimla, Aug 30 (PTI) It was a long walk from Manimahesh amid floods and landslides with no road and mobile connectivity, and intermittent rains made the situation worse, said residents of Hamirpur who made it home on Friday night.

A large number of pilgrims were stranded en route Manimahesh.

The Manimahesh Yatra, which starts on August 17 and concludes in September, was suspended on August 24 following heavy rains in the Chamba region. The Bharmaur area is still cut off by road and the mobile connectivity is still erratic.

The Chamba-Bharmour-Hadsarroute to Manimahesh lake is the common and established route which requires a 13 km trek from Hadsar to Manimahesh with night halt at Dhancho. There are other routes to Manimahesh from Lahaul-Spiti and Kangra and Mandi districts.

The pilgrims who returned to Hamirpur from the Manimahesh Yatra narrated their ordeal of how they travelled 50 km on foot despite all odds. Weather became bad as soon as we visited 'Baba Barfani' at Manimahesh and landslides occurred at several places, says Sunny Rana, an ex-serviceman from Hamirpur.

Rana, who had visited Manimahesh along with other former soldiers and friends on August 24, said that travelling became difficult after heavy rains and the yatra had to be stopped. He along with his friends walked 50 km on foot from Hadsar to Bharmaur crossing treacherous stretches full of slides, after which they boarded a bus home.

The Manimahesh pilgrims are safe, massive rescue operations are underway and the administration is helping people in all possible ways, but lack of connectivity has made the relatives of the pilgrims worried, he said, and appealed to the people not to believe the rumours doing rounds on social media.

"My relatives had also gone for the Manimahesh Yatra and their phones were not reachable, but we were able to communicate with them on Saturday morning and they are safe," said another local youth Lucky.

However, another pilgrim from Chamba, Jiten, said, "There was no administration, no disaster management even after the weather alert. People left their vehicles, two-wheelers and started walking; there was no road and mobile connectivity. Crumbling mountains and the furious Ravi roaring below, it was a difficult walk." A Chamba native, who returned from Bharmaur after four days on Friday, said that even now, thousands of women, children, the elderly and the youth are stuck in the hope that they will be rescued.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu took an aerial survey of landslide-hit Bharmaur in Chamba and flood-affected Indora and Fatehpur area in the Kangra district. He said pilgrims were evacuated to safe places and the police and administration facilitated the journey of young people who wished to walk till Bharmaur.

The revenue and public works ministers were at the spot. Directions have been given to open roads at the earliest but bad weather is creating obstruction and the road-opening work is being carried out on war-footing. If the weather remains fine, pilgrims would be airlifted in small helicopters, he said.

More than 3,000 pilgrims were safely evacuated to secure locations. This included 23 people stranded in tough locations, besides recovering five bodies, said Superintendent of Police, SDRF, Arjit Sen, adding that rescue operations would continue till the last stranded person is brought to safety.

He said that at present, one team is stationed at Dhancho and another on the Kugti-“Gaidhar Parikrama route. Each team is equipped with ISAT Phone for satellite communication, medical first responder kits, collapsed structure search and rescue equipment, flood-rescue equipment and mountaineering gear. PTI BPL MNK MNK