- Saturday, March 01, 2025
An avalanche hit the Border Roads Organisation camp between Mana and Badrinath early on Friday morning, and 47 of the 55 workers who got trapped have been rescued
By: India Weekly
RESCUERS pulled out 14 more workers from the snow that engulfed a BRO camp in the high-altitude Mana village in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district as search operations resumed at the site of the avalanche on Saturday (1), officials said.
Eight workers continue to remain trapped.
With the evacuation of the 14 workers, 47 of the 55 workers trapped under the avalanche, which hit the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp between Mana and Badrinath early on Friday morning, have been rescued.
Thirty-three had been rescued by Friday night.
Rain and snowfall hampered the rescue efforts on Friday and the operation was suspended as the night fell.
As the weather cleared up on Saturday, choppers joined the operation.
District disaster management officer N K Joshi said Army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel based in Mana resumed the rescue operation in the morning.
According to the officials, the rescue teams pulled out 14 more workers from the snow while a search is on for the remaining eight who have been trapped for more than 24 hours now.
Three of the rescued workers are in critical condition and were undergoing treatment at the ITBP hospital in Mana were airlifted to the Jyotirmath Army Hospital, Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said.
“We hope the clear weather will speed up the rescue operation,” he said.
According to a list released by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority, the trapped workers are from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir, among other states.
Disaster Management Secretary Vinod Kumar Suman said on Friday that more than 65 personnel are engaged in the rescue operation.
Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres.
Uttarakhand is increasingly prone to flash floods and landslides due to rising global temperatures, and environmentalists have urged a review of power projects and other development work there.
At least 80 people were killed and more than 200 reported missing when a part of a glacier in the state broke away in February 2021. An avalanche in 2022 killed 16 people. (Agencies)
