Rain and fog today delayed the rescue operations in Uttarakhand where the death toll from the calamity rose to 807 with 127 more bodies recovered from Kedarnath even as security forces began the process of cremating the decaying corpses lying in the shrine premises.

Fresh incidents of landslips were also reported from Tehri district in which a woman and a child were killed.

Foggy and overcast conditions in Dehradun delayed the take-off by choppers at Sahasradhara helipad and Jolly Grant Airport but air rescue operations to evacuate around 9,000 people have now resumed with improvement in the weather.

Official sources that 127 more bodies were recovered from Kedarnath area since yesterday, taking the death toll to 807.

With rains hampering the rescue operations from Badrinath where a majority of pilgrims remain stranded, Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna has appealed to their relatives not to run out of patience saying that they are safe with enough supplies of food and medicines made available to them.

Assuring them that their kin stranded in Badrinath will be evacuated safely at the earliest, he asked them not to worry. There are about five community kitchens being run at the shrine under the supervision of the district administration, he said.

Meanwhile, truck loads of dry Deodar wood and ghee have been despatched to Kedarnath and the effort is to begin the process of mass ritual cremation of bodies strewn over the premises after their identification, post-mortem and DNA preservation formalities, sources at the state police headquarters here told PTI.

With the bodies already beginning to putrefy, the air is laden with a stench giving rise to fears of an epidemic outbreak in the affected areas.

Related Topics