Evacuation n relief operations in progress on war footing, about 202 missing, 20 dead and few stuck inside tunnels at Tapovan, high alert in the affected area

About eighteen dead bodies have been retrieved by the rescue teams at Tapovan, Garhwal, the main site of the glacial burst tragedy on Sunday after over ten bodies were recovered yesterday.

The numbers of missing has also enhanced to 202 from 170, after in-depth assesment by various relief and rescue teams of ITBP, NDRF, SDRF, defence n police forces still busy in the rescue operations.

The chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat had yesterday evening given the missing figure as 170 with news of seven bodies having been recovered till Sunday evening in a press conference at Dehradun after returning from the accidental spot of natural calamity strictly monitoring and expediting the relief and rescue operations.

According to the latest figures released by the state administration there are till now reports of 202 people missing .

The company carrying out the construction and installation work in the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project has assessed 21 of its employees missing with 100 employees/ workers of its associated company.

Three missing belong to HCC , 31 of Om Metal Company, 46 of Rishi Ganga company of Rishiganga Hydro Power project with the power production capacity of mere 14 megawatt.

The Tapovan mega project of NTPC which suffered losses of approximately Rs. 450 crores situated near Tapovan village was of 520 megawatt power production capacity.

The project’s total cost is staggering 13500 crores having started its construction in the year 2006 suffering losses during the ecological disaster of 2013 too.

About eleven inhabitants of Raini, Ringi, Karchaaun villages have also been missing.

These villages have been cut off completely in view of the four swinging bridges having completely damaged in the flash floods yesterday.

Raini village is historical as the renowned legendary leader of Chipko movement against masdive cutting of trees, Gaurav Devi was born here who spearheaded the Chipko movement by embracing trees, enabling the then central government n government of UP withdraw its orders( Van Adhiniyam ) allowing massive cutting of forest trees by contractor, thus earning name n fame globally.

Kindly recall that after the breach in Nanda Devi glacier on Sunday morning the Dhauli Ganga , the tributary of Alaknanda’s uprising flash floods had completely damaged the Rishiganga n NTPC’s Tapovan Hydropower projects resulting in several deaths and missing of about 202 persons working in these projects, including eleven villagers of three surrounding villages.

The government allegedly fears the missing to be probably dead till they are not traced.

The evacuation relief teams are extremely busy trying to retrieve those stuck inside the tunnels including the dead bodies of which about twenty dead bodies have been retrieved.

The district magistrate of the area including senior police officials and the NTPC chairman Gurdeep Singh are camping at the affected sites.

There is still panic all around with Uttarakhand CM n entire Chamoli administration including rescue teams of ITBP, SDRF, NDRF, state police and Army evacuating the injureds n those trapped inside the tunnels.

The seventeen villages due to the four fully damaged swinging bridges are stuck in their villages for now with relief material being send their.

According to the latest information about thirty five employees/ workers are still stuck inside the tunnel with heavy machines on the job to clear the slit, stones n muck to evacuate them safely. Till now about about 70 personnel of NDRF teams, 125 jawans of Army n SSB, n good number of ITBP jawans are busy in the relief and evacuation operations.

Meanwhile senior journalist Vyomesh Jugran has while expressing his serious concern over the Tapovan tragedy wrote that the Himalaya has once against cautioned the civilisation. The warning this time has arrived from Malari area situated at sensitive Indo China border. This is the same Malari where internationally famed Chipko leader Gaura Devi lived in Raini Gain spearheading for the very first time the popular Chipko movement against massive deforrestation. The last camp of ITBP in Ghastoli is situated hear, where occasionally news about Chinese arbitrary infilteration appear every now and then. Despite being the border area this is also extremely sensitive in terms of environment and ecology. The question is: Afterall how n why the glacier outburst took place above Rishi Ganga or it happened due to the damage n destruction of unknown lake. Granting of permission for the construction of such big dams in Nanda Devi biosphere, buffer zone is a huge blunder he wrote. What is more worrisome is the fact that the successive governments are not learning any lessons from the massive ecological disaster of 2013 tragedy of Kedarnath that claimed thousands on innocent lives followed by the present tragedy at Tapovan, Joshimath in Chamoli district.