Uttarakhand avalanche survivors recount harrowing experience
When Border Roads Organisation (BRO) worker Jagbir Singh came to his senses, he was surrounded by an endless expanse of white, lying next to a dead co-worker. His body was stuck inside mounds of snow and he had a fractured leg and injuries to his head.
Singh saw a hotel some distance away and took shelter there for around 25 hours, eating snow and battling the piercing cold with only a single blanket to share with over a dozen of his companions. They were all trapped under an avalanche in the high-altitude village of Mana in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district.
Jagbir Singh from Amritsar said he was sleeping in his container at the BRO camp when the snow slide sent them tumbling several hundred metres down. "The container we were in went rolling down. By the time we could figure out what had happened, I found that a colleague had died and one of my legs was fractured. I also had an injury in the head," he said.
They somehow trudged to a hotel at some distance and took shelter. "We were rescued after 25 hours, during which 14-15 of us had just one blanket to cover us. We ate snow when we felt thirsty," he said.
Fifty-four BRO workers, who were all housed inside containers for the night, got stuck due to the avalanche on Friday. Seven workers died while 46 of them are receiving treatment for their injuries after they were pulled out safely following a multi-agency rescue operation. Efforts to find one other worker are still underway.
The traumatised survivors of the avalanche were brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath.
The avalanche was so fierce that it blew the containers 300 metre down in just 10 seconds, said Manoj Bhandari from Uttarkashi. "I lost my senses for a while, and then realised that running away was impossible as there were 3-4 feet of snow all around. Somehow we walked barefoot through the snow to reach an empty Army guest house to take shelter. Rescuers reached us after 2-3 hours," Bhandari said.
The containers were all swept away towards Alaknanda river, said Munna Prasad from Vaishali district in Bihar. "We lay scattered under snow for around 12 hours. Snow was clogging our nostrils. It was difficult to breathe. However, thankfully the Army and ITBP teams came to our rescue before it was too late," he said.
Many workers survived by taking refuge in whatever shelter they could find — Army camps and barracks, deserted hotels. While some were rescued within hours of the avalanche on Friday, others had to spend hours in the cold with next to no resources. Thirty-three of them were rescued by Friday night and 17 on Saturday.
Another survivor, Avinash Kumar's entire body was buried under snow, except for his head — which was bleeding and injured as he had hit an iron object. He was rescued by Army personnel after two hours and later sent for treatment where he received 29 stitches in the head.
Chandrabhan from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh said a milder snow slide preceded the main one which came around 5.30 am, giving them no time to prepare. "I escaped through an opening on top of the container," he said.
Vipin Kumar from Himachal Pradesh said everything happened in a flash. The guest house served as a shelter for many stranded labourers who spent nearly 25 hours in sub-zero temperatures, amid constant snowfall, without proper clothing, he said.
Another rescued worker, Ganesh Kumar from Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand said it had snowed overnight before the avalanche hit early in the morning. "It was around six in the morning. I was sleeping in the container with my colleagues. Meanwhile, our container started moving with the snow and soon we found ourselves stuck."
Moradabad's Vijaypal and his companions fell into a ditch which was more than 100-metre deep. They saw a deserted Army barrack some 200 metre away and waded through the debris of the avalanche towards it. Due to the area's vulnerability to avalanches, the Army does not use the barrack in winter. The barrack became a lifeline for them where they stayed for around 24 hours before being taken to safety.
He added that it had been snowing for many days and on the morning of February 28, there were two avalanches near their camp. "We survived the first one, but after a few minutes there was another more powerful avalanche and we went down about 150 metre along with the container."
