Amarnath Cloudburst: 35 missing out of 37 pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh traced

Among the 37 pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh, who went missing after a downpour hit the lower Amarnath cave shrine on Friday, 35 have been traced and were heading safely to their respective destinations, officials here said on Monday.

An official said that 35 pilgrims have been traced and have arrived safely in Andhra, while two are still missing.

He said that two pilgrims from Andra Pradesh, namely Gunishetty Sudha and Kotha Parvathi, belonging to the Rajahmundry area of ​​Andhra Pradesh, are still missing. At the same time, efforts are being made to trace them.

The 35 more missings include Shailaja and 10 others from Nellore; Bharati Reddy, Madhu Reddy and 16 others from Nellore; Kota Srinivasa Rao, Kota Vardhan and Kota Vishwanath (all from Rajahmundry); M Krishna Kiran and Ravi Ram Badar Murthy (Eluru) and SS Suresh of Ta- nuku. Initially, the state government said six pilgrims went missing but later four of them — Vinod Ashok (Vijayawada), B Madhu (Chittoor), M Jhansi Lakshmi (Guntur) and V Nagendra Kumar (Vizianagaram) — were traced by officials.

Meanwhile, Indian Air Force Air Commodore Pankaj Mittal, giving details of the rescue operations during a press briefing, said that most of the rescue operations have been completed in the holy cave.

He said that during the rescue mission, carried out by IAF, 04 MI-17, 04 Cheetah and other ALH helicopters were pressed into service.

He said the IAF carried out a total of 112 missions so far during the Holy Amarnath cave rescue operation and 130 people, including 123 wounded and 7 dead, were transported from Holy cave and Panjtarni area and Baltal.

He said that this operation moved 29 tons of cargo, including equipment, NDRF rescue teams, engineers, dog squads, etc., into the Holy Cave area.

"The sacred valley of Amarnath, which is very narrow and has aerospace limitations, was difficult for the large-scale rescue mission, but the IAF managed all things and carried out the rescue mission successfully," he said, adding which was a joint operation carried out by several agencies, including the army, police, paramilitary forces, NDRF and civil administration.

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Part 1: Cloudburst  in Ganderbal's Padabal village & unfulfilled promises