2 Days On, Ops Continue To Rescue 4 Trapped In Uttarakhand Avalanche

Rescue operations resumed on Sunday morning to trace four labourers who have been trapped for more than 48 hours after an avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli. The four missing workers have been identified as Harmesh Chand from Himachal Pradesh, Ashok from Uttar Pradesh and Anil Kumar and Arvind Singh from Uttarakhand.

The avalanche struck the labour site of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) near Mana village, about 5 km from the Badrinath Temple, on Friday, burying 54 workers inside eight containers and a shed under the snow.

Thirty-three of them were rescued by Friday night and 17 on Saturday with the help of personnel from the Army, Air Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF).

However, four workers – Mohindra Pal and Jitendra Singh from Himachal Pradesh, Manjit Yadav from Uttar Pradesh and Alok Yadav from Uttarakhand – died during treatment

Uttarakhand Avalanche Rescue Ops

Heavy rain and snowfall have hampered the rescue operation, which was briefly halted for the last two nights. Relief teams are working at the avalanche site at an altitude of more than 3,200 metres, and where minimum temperatures were down to minus 12 degrees Celsius.

on Saturday was mostly carried out by the Army and Air Force helicopters as snowfall limited vehicular movement.

More than 200 personnel from the army, the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, NDRF, SDRF, IAF, district administration, health department and fire brigade are engaged in the rescue operations.

Six helicopters — three of the Indian Army Aviation Corps, two of the Air Force and a civil chopper hired by the Army — are engaged in the rescue operation.

The officials are also using specialised RECCO radars, drones and avalanche rescue dogs to trace the missing workers.

On Saturday, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also did an aerial survey of the avalanche-hit site and reviewed the relief-and-rescue operations.

आदरणीय प्रधानमंत्री श्री @narendramodi जी एवं माननीय केंद्रीय गृहमंत्री श्री @AmitShah जी के मार्गदर्शन में केन्द्र सरकार द्वारा भी बचाव कार्यों में पूरा सहयोग मिल रहा है। हमारी डबल इंजन सरकार हर परिस्थिति में नागरिकों के साथ मजबूती से खड़ी है। pic.twitter.com/IwbFdauraL

— Pushkar Singh Dhami (@pushkardhami) March 1, 2025

Officers have been instructed to carry on with the search for the missing workers on a war footing, he said.

Uttarakhand Avalanche Survivors Recall Horror

Manoj Bhandari, one of 54 workers housed in containers near Mana, said he woke up to a “mountain of snow” sliding from the peak.

“I shouted to alert everyone and ran behind the loader machine parked nearby to save myself,” he said as he recalled the Uttarakhand avalanche.

Another worker, Gopal Joshi, said the weather was as bad as it had been for the last few days. It all happened in a jiffy, he said.

“Snow was falling outside. The incident must have happened around 6 am. As soon as we came out of the container, we heard a loud thunder. When we looked towards the top, we saw a deluge of snow rolling towards us. I shouted to alert my companions and ran. There were already several feet of snow, due to which we could not run fast. After two hours, the soldiers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police came to rescue us,” he said.

Vipin Kumar said he was buried in snow for about 15 minutes.