Brave ITBP Jawans in Kedarnath- 2013

 

Brave ITBP Jawans in Kedarnath

Story of rescue and relief operation by ITBP jawans during Uttarakhand Floods in 2013

June in the year 2013 was no different. Lacs of pilgrims were on their to and fro journey in Char Cham in Uttarakhand. Everything was so usual. Clear skies, movement of vehicles and other transport. Monsoon too was predicted as routine rainfall ahead.

Kedarnath valley on the bed of Mandakini was also busy in the Yatra season. The first month after opening of portals of Kedarnath was as usual so full of prilgrims, trourists, guides and many volunteers. The environment surrounding was full of devotion and spirituality. Old, children with the groups of enthusiastic pilgrims formed considerable number of share in the yatra that year. Gaurikund, Rambada, and Kedarnath were not aware that, in a few days, the geography and history of the Shrine valley will be re scripted with sorrow, agony, loss and so many untold stories. It was expected that more than 100 thousand pilgrims were present in Kedarnath valley on 16 June, 2013.

In the intervening night of 14 and 15 June, rainfall started in many parts of Uttarakhand. It continued till 16 June midnight. The Chorabari glacier behind the Kedarnath Shrine was loaded with fresh rainfall as cloud burst phenomenon occurred in the valley. The rainfall continued for about 36 hours continuously. Natural obstacle on the way of Chorabari Glacier lake was broken by the massive water pressure.

Floods started on the date of 16 June 2013, at 5:15 PM. The heavy rain flooded the Saraswati River and Dudh Ganga catchment areas as well. Resulting in excessive flow and heavy soil erosion and landslide the floodwater alongwith the gathered debris moved towards the Kedarnath Town. The temple priest announced many times that all prilgrims should be careful as rainfall can cause fresh floods in nearby nallas and rivers. Boom…boom….the frightening sound filled the wave of fear among the pilgrims when they saw streams in waves approaching the Kedarnath. They wanted to go the safe place, which was, sadly not available anywhere in the entire area as no portion of the valley was left from the deadly water force.

Floods reached Kedarnath first with tons of mud, stones, big rocks. It surrounded the Kedarnath temple from all the sides and the entire temple premises, nearby areas, shops, hotels etc were drowned. Thousands of pilgrims and local people washed away in the first thrust of the force of the floods. The havoc continued the whole night and till the other day when the water level receded a bit. Many people including women, children, and old were engulfed into the killer stream of the floods. 

Numerous pilgrims and locals lost their lives; thousands of people were stranded; numerous buildings collapsed, thousands of people became homeless; several kilometers of roads were washed away, and the communication & transportation system were crippled.  Bridges, roads, shelter places were completely destroyed.

People from all over the country were part of the groups visiting the Shrine. Their mobile phones were not working since all power source, mobile towers, communication lines were damaged completely. The rising water level of Mandakini continued to soar as it washed away Rambara completely as nothing was left when aerial recce was done to see the damage.

With no immediate information available and poor weather conditions, the state administration launched some aerial recce to see the area. Only after a lot of efforts in bad weather, the pilots managed to approach to the Kedarnath and then the actual story of destruction appeared before the world on 18 June, 2013. The Kedarnath Temple complex, surrounding areas, and Kedarnath town suffered vast damage. But, the temple structure did not suffer any major damage.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBPF) which mainly guards the Indo-China border swung into action even before the army or the Air force could reach the spot. Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) battalions, stationed in the area, and NDRF along with Army, Air Force took up mammoth task of relief and rescue in hilly terrain. ITBP carried out rescue operations in flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, as it is anticipated that the weather may take a turn for the worse and the force had constructed more tracks to rescue more people and used all the resources available to them to intensify the process.

The inclement weather added to the highly risky conditions for movement in the area, however, had it not been for the ITBP to initiate and spearhead the relief work so quickly. It was a huge challenge to initiate the rescue operation in the hazardous and inhospitable terrain conditions. Dead bodies were seen all over in the valley including people who lost their lives and animals.

 In this situation the ITBP launched the relief operation. About 1,000 strong force was deployed to work day and night in the search, relief and rescue operations. Many jawans refused to go on leave seeing the requirement of rescue operations.

ITBP jawans, trained in mountaineering and optimizing best use of local resources, started rescue operations. Thousands of stranded were rescued in the first 2 days. Helipads were made operational, tracks and routes were repaired as much as possible. Food, shelter and drinking water was arranged. Also, medicines were given to the needy.

Old, infants, child, sick people were also included in the pilgrims and they were evacuated by the ITBP and after giving first aid they shifted in safer places. ITBP mountaineers had played a vital role in this operation who made rope bridges over the river and saved the many lives, who was not able to walk, ITBP jawans support him and carried on his back or on stretchers. Free foods were provided by ITBP in the rescue and relief camps to the pilgrims and further they were transported to the safe places through the ITBP vehicles.

Thousands of pilgrims were evacuated by ITBP from Hemkund Sahib, Ghagharia, Govindghat areas. Foreign pilgrims were also stranded in these areas and ITBP rescued them safely.

The NDRF Battalion also formed part of the rescue operation after 20 June, 2013. Till this time, dozens of Helicopters of Air Force started operating in the area for the rescue operations. All these agencies were supported by the ITBP in providing them launch bases in the area.

The 7^th NDRF Battalion was operational in the valley in rescue and relief work with 8^th Battalion ITBP, Gauchar, Uttarakhand. The personnel of 7^th NDRF Battalion were from ITBP only on deputation with the NDRF.

The dead bodies and their management was becoming a big issue before the authorities. Since, there was no identification tool for those dead bodies, it was then decided by the administration that after the DNA samplings, the dead bodies would be cremated. But where were the woods? Mass cremation required tones of woods which had to be air lifted to cremation grounds/ nearest Helipads.

After 23 June, it was decided that the woods will be airlifted to big Helicopters like MI 17 of the Indian Air Force to the designated grounds for cremation. Helicopters started this dumping from 24 June.

Sh Nityanad Gupta, 2^nd In Command of the 7^th NDRF was the ground incharge of the Kedarnath rescue teams of the NDRF. He was assisted by 8 NDRF and 6 ITBP men. The team was tirelessly working since last 72 hours in maintaining the supplies. They all had to come to the Gauchar base to coordinate further plans of rescue and relief works.

In the morning of 25 June, 2013, an MI 17 V5 of the Indian Air Force carrying woods landed on the spot. After unloading, the Helicopter took these 15 personnel to transport them back to Gauchar.

The weather condition was still bad. Every day, the clouds made the area tricky for flying operation in the valley with poor and no visibility. But, there was no option but to move ahead as thousands of lives were awaiting for them every day.

While returning, the pilots were in a fix. After Gaurikund, there was no visibility for many kilometers. After lot of efforts, the pilots tried to take a detour to come out of the clouds. Nothing happened. After 15 minutes, the visibility became darker as nothing could had been seen. Suddenly, the engines started making noise and the machine lost control. The highly trained and experience pilots tried their best but it went down and down, finally crashing on a hill and engulfing into a fire mushroom.

Till evening and then the whole night, there was no trace of the chopper. Uttarkashi, Joshimath, Pauri Garhwal, Chamoli were on high alert. On the next day in the evening other Helicopters saw the wreckage of the crashed MI 17.

The site was inaccessible from all approach points. The ITBP launched its team of mountaineers to reach to the location and retrieved the dead bodies of all 20 personnel including 15 ITBP/ NDRF and 5 crew members.  Sh Nitya Nand Gupta, Second In Command, Insp/GD Bhim Singh,  SI/GD Jayendra Prasad, SI/RO Satish Kumar, CT/GD Nand Ram, CT/GD Bibhuti Roy, CT/GD Sarvesh Kumar, CT/ GD Jomon P.G, CT/GD Ajay Lal, CT/GD K.Vinaygan, Ct/GD Bassavaraj Yaragatti, CT/GD Santosh Kumar Paswan, CT/GD Sanjiva Kumar, CT/GD Pawar Shashikant Ramesh and CT/GD Ahir Rao Ganesh and 5 Air Force personnel were heroics received in the line of duty and the entire country paid the salute & condolence to them for supreme sacrifice. All ITBP brave hearts were awarded with Life Saving and Police Medal for Gallantry (Poshumously).

In the entire operation, the ITBP alone evacuated 34 thousands stranded people and gave food and portable water to thousands, provided medical cover and temporary shelter to more than 10 thousands.

The supreme sacrifice by the ITBP men in the rescue work in Kedarnath tragedy is always remembered by the country as one of the greatest examples of humanity and response to do rescue operations to save human lives.