Five of 17-member Maddur family traced

Five members of a family of 17, that had gone on a pilgrimage to the now flood-ravaged Kedarnath and Badrinath and were reported missing, have been traced to a gruel centre in the pilgrim centre.

The families of brothers, M G Nagaraj Rao, M G Seetaramu, M G Gururaj and M G Ramesh, residents of Kote Beedi in the town, had gone together for the pilgrimage.

The traced family members have been identified as senior journalist M G Seetaramu, M G Nagaraj Rao’s son Anant, daughter-in-law Kruti, Rao’s sister’s daughter Navya, son-in-law Ravichandra, a section of television news channels reported.

The other 12 members of the family including Rao are yet to be traced. Incidently, Seetramu’s younger son, Raghavendra had arrived in Bangalore to leave for Uttarakhand.

However, following assurances from the officers of Disaster Management Centre that pilgrims would be directly sent to their home states, he is staying put in the City. He has urged both the State and Centre to find missing family members.

On June 12, Seetaramu along with his wife Neela and elder son, elder brother Nagaraj Rao, his wife Suma, their daughter Nagasri, Nagasri’s husband, Rao’s son Ananth, four grandchildren, Seetaramu’s younger brothers M G Gururaj and his wife Sunanda and M G Ramesh and his wife Lakshmi and a relative Navya, had arrived in Delhi from Bangalore through a flight and took a late-night bus to Kedarnath.

“After alighting from the bus we were walking towards Kedarnath when there was sudden floods in the River Ganga. We scattered due to the floods. I don’t know what happened after that,” Seetaramu told a media agency.

Two days later, members of a para-military force rescued Seetaramu.

9 from Hassan missing in Kedarnath

Nine persons of a family from Hassan, who had gone on a pilgrimage to Badari-Kedarnath, went missing following the flood and landslides in Uttarkhand, reports DHNS from Hassan. Those who are reported to be missing are: Shwetha, her husband Raghavendra, their relatives Rajaram and his wife Sumana, daughter Hitashri, and another couple Shailaja and Raghavendra, their relatives Geeta and Raghavendra.

Shwetha’s father Ramesh, a resident of Hassan, is distraught as the family is clueless about them and the information they have got so far is only that the group stayed in a village. They were not reachable even on their cellphones, Ramesh said.

The group, which was on the tour organised by a private agency since June 14, was returning home from Kedarnath. However, they were forced to halt their journey due to the heavy rains and flash flood, and all of them stayed in a village, and since then they remained incommunicado.