New Delhi: Efforts are underway to resume the Amarnath Yatra, Jammu and Kashmir’s top official said today, appealing for pilgrims to come and assuring that all facilities will be provided. At least 16 people died after a flash flood triggered by heavy rains near the holy cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir swept away several people on Friday evening.
Lieutenant Governor of the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha on a visit to the Nunwan base camp for the cave shrine in Pahalgam commended security forces and the administration for an “efficient” rescue operation and said the damaged path to the shrine is being repaired so that the Yatra could be resumed.
The pilgrimage has been suspended from Jammu due to inclement weather conditions and no fresh batch was allowed to proceed from there to the base camps of the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine.
At least 15,000 pilgrims have been shifted to the lower base camp, while more than 40 people are still missing, officials have said.
The Indian Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, or ITBP, continued the rescue operation throughout last night as they looked for missing persons in the cloudburst-affected area at the lower Amarnath Cave site. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has sent three teams comprising about 75 rescuers, an official said.
The annual 43-day pilgrimage commenced from the twin base camps — Nunwan-Pahalgam in south Kashmir’s Anantnag and Baltal in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal — on June 30.
The yatra is scheduled to end on August 11 on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan. (Agencies)
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