Search continues for missing disaster victims in Uttarakhand's Gaurikund

Rescue teams in Uttarakhand toiled for the third consecutive day on Sunday, searching for 20 people who went missing in a landslide triggered by a flash flood in Gaurikund on the way to Kedarnath.

The landslide occurred around 12 am on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, washing away three shops located close to a rain-fed waterfall and around 50 metres above the Mandakini river, which was in spate.

Personnel from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, Yatra Management Force, police and fire brigade searched for the missing people with the help of drones from Dhari Devi to the Kund barrage on Sunday but found no one, District Disaster Management Officer (Rudraprayag) Nandan Singh Rajwar said.

Intermittent rain and falling boulders from hillsides continue to hamper the rescue efforts. The nearly six-kilometre stretch between Sonprayag and Gaurikund is highly vulnerable to landslides.

Three bodies were recovered from the rubble of the shops on Friday but 20 people remain missing. The spot where the shops stood and the Mandakini river is also being scoured, Rajwar said.

At 17, a majority of the victims were from Nepal. Ukhimath Sub-Divisional Magistrate Jitendra Verma said bad weather and the rise in the Mandakini's water level have made the rescue operation difficult.

With the continuing bad weather posing a threat of more landslides, owners of makeshift kiosks and shops are vacating the sites voluntarily to move to safe locations, he said.

The district administration has begun to identify shops and other structures on either side of the road between Sonprayag and Gaurikund that could be endangered by landslides.

The three bodies recovered on Friday have been identified as those of Devi Bahadur, Tek Bahadur and Prakash Tamta -- all from Nepal.

Among the 20 people still missing are Ashu and Priyanshu Chamola from Tilwara, Ranbir Singh from Basti, Nepal resident Amar Bohra, his wife Anita Bohra, their minor daughters Radhika and Pinky and sons Prithvi, Jatil and Vakil.

Vinod, a resident of Khanwa Bharatpur, Mulayam of Nagla Banjara in Saharanpur, Sugaram, Bam Bohra, Chandra Kami, Dharamraj, Neer Bahadur, his wife Sumitra Devi, their daughter Kumari Nisha, and Rohit Bisht from Utsuya Chopra are also missing.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)