Uttarakhand: Char Dham Yatra temporarily suspended due to heavy rain forecast
The ongoing Char Dham Yatra in Uttarakhand will remain suspended on Sunday due to the heavy rain alert issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for July 7-8.
Amidst incessant rainfall in entire Uttarakhand state for the past four days resulting in the death of six persons in rain related incidents and closure of 171 roads including 16 state highways, during the past 24 hours, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has appealed to the ‘Char Dham’ and ‘Kanwar Yatra’ pilgrims to check the weather conditions before proceeding on the yatra.
He also issued instructions to all district officials to be on alert to deal with any untoward situation. The Indian meteorological department has also issued an orange and red alert for Uttarakhand, which means that there is a “very high risk of heavy to very heavy rainfall” for another two days in the state.
The road traffic on ‘Char Dham yatra’ route has also been suspended from 8 pm till 5 am due to prevailing weather conditions and resultant landslides.
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The authorities also ordered the closure of all schools up to 12th classes in seven districts namely Dehradun,Uttarkashi, Nainital, Almora, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh and Udham Singh Nagar district. The schools remained closed in Uttarkashi, Dehradun and Pithoragarh district for June 10 while in Udham Singh Nagar they will be closed for two days( July 10 and July11).In Almora and Bagehswar, schools will remain closed for three days (July 10 to july 12 and in Nainital for four days (July 10 to July 13).
In an incident early morning on June 9, a max passenger vehicle rolled into flooded Ganga river after presumably hit by a boulder at pavki devi tehsil in Tehri district. Three passengers of the vehicle were killed while three others were also feared dead and traceable. Five of the injured were rescued by the police and locals.
On Sunday evening, a 45-year-old policeman namely CS Tomar was killed in a rock-fall incident on the Yamunotri highway in Uttarkashi district while he was on traffic duty. In another incident, an elderly couple died in Kashipur of Udham Singh Nagar after their house collapsed in the wee hours of Sunday.
Most of the rivers in the state are flowing close to the danger mark. The Ganga river at Haridwar was flowing at 292 meters close to the danger mark of 294 meters as per the data released by State Disaster Emergency control room on Monday morning. In Rishikesh, Ganga was flowing at 338.32m, closer to the danger level of 339.5m.
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