'Came to senses next to dead co-worker': Uttarakhand avalanche survivor narrates horror

BRO worker Jagbir Singh said he was sleeping in his container at the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp when the snowslide sent them tumbling several hundred metres down.

Dehradun: BRO worker Jagbir Singh came to his senses surrounded by an endless expanse of white, next to a dead co-worker, his body stuck inside mounds of snow with a fractured leg and injuries to his head.

Singh saw a hotel some distance away and took shelter in it for around 25 harrowing hours, eating snow when thirsty and battling piercing cold with only a single blanket to share with over a dozen of his companions -- all of who were trapped under an avalanche in the high-altitude village of Mana in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district.

Jagbir Singh from Amritsar said he was sleeping in his container at the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp when the snowslide sent them tumbling several hundred metres down.

"The container we were in went rolling down. By the time we could figure out what had happened, I found a colleague had died and one of my legs was fractured. I also had an injury in the head. There were heaps of snow everywhere," he said.

They somehow trudged to a hotel at some distance and took shelter. "We were rescued after 25 hours during which 14-15 of us had just one blanket to cover us. We ate snow when we felt thirsty," he said.

Fifty-four BRO workers who were all housed inside containers for the night got stuck due to the avalanche Friday morning. Seven workers died while 46 of them are receiving treatment for their injuries after they were pulled out safely following a multi-agency rescue operation. Efforts to find one other worker are still underway.

The traumatised survivors of the avalanche brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath recount their horrifying ordeal.

The avalanche was so fierce that it blew the containers 300 metres down in just ten seconds, said Manoj Bhandari from Uttarkashi.

"I lost my senses for a while then realised running away was impossible as there were 3-4 feet of snow all around. Somehow we walked barefoot through the snow to reach an empty Army guest house to take shelter. Rescuers reached us after 2-3 hours," Bhandari said.

The containers were all swept away towards Alaknanda river, said Munna Prasad from Vaishali district in Bihar.

"We lay scattered under snow for around 12 hours. Snow was clogging our nostrils. It was difficult to breathe. However, thankfully the Army and ITBP teams came to our rescue before it was too late," he said.

Many workers survived by taking refuge in whatever shelter they could find -- Army camps and barracks, deserted hotels. While some were rescued within hours of the avalanche on Friday, others had to spend tens of hours in the cold with next to no resources.

Thirty-three of them were rescued by Friday night and 17 on Saturday.

Another Bihar resident Avinash Kumar's entire body was buried under snow, except for his head -- which was bleeding and injured as he had hit an iron object during the avalanche. He was rescued by Army personnel after two hours and later sent for treatment where he received 29 stitches in the head.

Chandrabhan from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh said a milder snowslide preceded the main one which came around 5.30 am, giving them no time to prepare. "I escaped through an opening on top of the container," he said.

Vipin Kumar from Himachal Pradesh said everything happened in a flash. The Army guest house served as a shelter for many stranded labourers who spent nearly 25 hours in sub-zero temperatures, amid constant snowfall, without proper clothing, he said.

Another rescued worker, Ganesh Kumar from Pithoragarh in Uttarakhand said it had snowed overnight before the avalanche hit early morning. He said he was asleep when it happened.

"It was around six in the morning. I was sleeping in the container with my colleagues. Meanwhile, our container started moving with the snow and soon we found ourselves stuck in the middle of the snow." After some time, the rescue team came and took us to the Army hospital on a stretcher.

Moradabad's Vijaypal and his companions fell into a ditch more than a hundred metres deep. They saw a deserted Army barrack some 200 metres away and waded through the debris of the avalanche towards it.

Due to the area's vulnerability to avalanches, the Army does not use the barrack in winter. The barrack became a lifeline for them where they stayed for around 24 hours before being taken to safety.

Vijaypal said it had been snowing for many days and on the morning of February 28, there were two avalanches near their camp.

"We survived the first avalanche but after a few minutes there was another more powerful avalanche and we went down about 150 metres along with the container.

"On the road to Mana, at a distance of about 150-200 metres, there was an empty army camp where we spent the whole night in the empty barracks," he said.