Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-1)

This video is also covered in story below with complete description

Short  Description of my trip.
We (me,mummy,uncle, aunty and driver) planned to visit char dham( ie Yamunotri,Gangotri,Kedarnath and Badrinath). So we completed Yamunotri and Gangotri and moved towards the Kedarnath by our personal Innova .It was too difficult to reach Kedarnath on the same day so we decided to take rest in between Gangotri and Kedarnath and took a night halt and planned to travel early in the morning. And on next morning after breakfast we moved to Kedarnath.

Reached Gaurikund

We reached Phata(a place before 15 Km before gaurikund  ) at 6 PM . There we saw a long line of vehicles.and a police man told me that each hour we send limited number of vehicles to gaurikund and u have to wait . That was the first place in uttrakhand where we saw any police or governance . we are also stopped by some check post before and they told that you cannot travel after 6 PM but after taking 200Rs they allowed all the vehicles to pass. So after one long hour we got our way but full of traffic no management from government at all. We moved with the speed of 10Km/hr and reached Gaurikund at 9PM. And found that there were no space for parking and police told driver to park innova 7km far from Gaurikund I was very disapponted with this and with this mismanagement of government.

Now Gaurikund was like khumbh mela, too much rush and to fill the gap rain started.And we start searching for hotel with our luggage  on road,near by hotel charging to much for night stay. So we moved towards hot spring pools and took the only left 10 cross 10 feet room in 2000 Rs. We asked for a discount from hotel manager then he  refused to give the discount and told that this is the most crowdy night in past years. As there was no choice so we took that room and decided to leave for the temple at 6 AM next morning. 

From Gaurikund to kedarnath temple

Their was heavy rain in the morning when we wake up at 5 AM, So we purchased local raincoats and left the gaurikund at 8 AM. First we decided to take horses to travel to kedarnath temple( it was 14km track from gauriund to kedarnath from which 7kms gaurikund to ramvada was easy track but after ramvada to kadernth temple was steap and narrow)
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Horse parking in gaurikund

After all our religious discussion elder decided not to opt horse and track by our own while tracking to kedarnath we seen many different species  of plants some were looking like snakes.

There we seen every age group people tracking with all difficulties and the only thing strengthening them was chanting "jai kedarnath baba". it was a divine feeling and there you can see real follower of Dharm. but some are only for fun and they are treating it like a outing throwing ploy-bags and water bottles in river. At 11Pm we reached Ramwada here we took some breakfast and seen again a huge parking of horse.

     The nominal charges fixed by govt was 700Rs one way and after 6 PM the route from gaurikund to kedarnath temple was closed . But humans will never leave there tendency if you are ready to pay 2000Rs they will take you to the kedardham at 8 Pm also and if you want to start from Gauri kund in midnight then also they have no problem just pay some more ie 3000Rs one way. There was also helicopter service from phata to kedar temple but was stopped by horse owners to earn more from visitors.
 After all it was a nice decision not to choose horse ride for tracking.

There was no maintenance of the track neither from government nor from temple committee . it was to small for both horse and humans walking on same time . And don't ask about the excreta of horses it was all over the road and was coming on us as horses are passing from there. One can not find a single police man to help a needy and not a single first aid camp or temporary hospitals. i am sharing some of the pics of Natural beauty and mismanagement

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-3)

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

In the Morning of 17-June-2013

In morning my mother waked me up asking to run outside the hotel as the manager was shouting that "run out hotel can collapse at any time  and you have to stay in hotel at your risk". And what I saw is in the below video.

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By seeing this I was worried about the guys who were there in parking because this was our parking Area which was converted in a river and all the vehicles was covered in 20 meter deep mud and rocks. You can find in video that it was not the water in the flood but it is the mud and rocks flowing like water and here comes the story of a woman with her 8 year old daughter whose bus was flooded into the river and also other stories of different people  which I will discuss in my other post. Again but with  god's grace nothing happened  to our vehicle because it was parked in hotel . One of the front line hotel collapsed into the river. And after 3 to 4 hours the whole parking was covered by 30 Meter mud and was looking like a big ground.

And also the road connecting kedarnath to Sitapur was damaged from the middle, so no more vehicles can reach here and it was like we cant move neither back nor forward. So you can say we were trapped there and no electricity because there was no fuel to run generators and over all no mobile signals.And below are the pics displaying the road condition.

One more sad news came from our nearby hotel . There was a group of senior people all aged above 60 came for Char Dham yatra. From them 3 peolple died by heart  attack after watching the flood in the morning.

Other problem was of food there were no rate hikes in lunch platter (of 70 rs)but quantity was decreasing 

daily.but on next day the shopkeeper decided to give lunch in free and it was from the last storage of grains.

And in below picture you can find all rich and poor standing in the queue for food.

18-june-2013 Sitapur kedarnath uttrakhand

In these two days we haven't seen a single policeman or any help from government. On 17 June we saw some helicopters moving from phata to kedarnath temple but they were also from  private services . and some local people told that government is conducting meeting in dehradoon and in those 2 days we heard the same.

From Sitapur to Phata

In noon of 18th the road was cleared and we moved towards the phata here we seen many disasters scene . some are displayed below.

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-2)

                      Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-1)

Natural beauty Pictures

These are the frozen rivers melting and flowing under the ice

Pictures Showing mismanagement and uncontrolled crowd

 The rallying for support are too weak. and are dangerous too. if someone leans from then they will surly fall.

Reached Kedarnath Temple

We reached Kedarnath at 3PM and found that the temple was closed and will open for darshan at 5PM. During this two hours i.e from 3 to 5 PM pandits decorates the shiv ling .Due  to this the queue for darshan was increasing continuously.

Queue for darshan in kedarnath

There was only a small shed to protect all pilgrims from freeze wind and rain.One can find all age group people standing and waiting  eagerly for darshan.At the end of queue there was small ashram which is distributing tea and kichdi without any cost. 

After some time around 4 PM a pandit came and told that if someone is feeling delay in his program due to unavailability of darshan from 3 to 5 than he can pay 2100Rs and can do darshan by VIP pass. This was too cheap that on one side you are saying that Loard shiva takes rest from 3 to 5 and if one is paying extra money then they are allowing him to visit temple. At 5 PM we seen a movement in line  and someone told that temple is opened for the darshan,at same time a heavy rain  drenched  us completely and we all started shivering. But Darshan of kedarnath energized us and we decided to return to Gaurikund and not to stay in kedarnath.

                     

Back to Gaurikund

 So at 6 PM we left the temple and started moving towards the Ramwada.

We reached Ramwada at 9 PM and now the track from Ramwada to Gaurikund which was still 7 Km became difficult. The track became slippery due to rain and horse excreta. There are generators but not a single one is working , there is only 10 feet visibility and we slipped many times in the ditches full of mud and horse stool. 

But here also I can see many Pilgrims tracking towards the temple in that horrible  mid night with small kids and old people. I asked them to take rest in Gaurikund and not to move towards the Kedarnath in night but they said " we want to reach temple before 5 AM and will be back tomorrow in noon". There were also small shelters made for the travelers to take rest but on that rainy night all the shelters were full and there is no place even to stand.Finally any how we can back to Gaurikund at 11:30Pm (almost midnight).

Now it was not possible to move out of Gaurikund because there were no mobile signals and we have no idea of our driver and car so we decided have night halt  at Gaurikund and tried calling driver all night but was of no use.

Next morning  was also rainy and no signals again ,so we waited for driver for 3 hours and at 9 Am I decided to go to to all the parking areas to search our car. So when I started walking from Gaurikund to Phata ,I saw that the parking No.1 was completely immersed in water and thanks to  god that we have not got place here for parking. Then I moved further and checked all the parking but all were in same condition the cars and other vehicles are immersing slowly into the water and water level too increasing slowly. But after moving 5 kms from Gaurikunnd I got signals and called the driver asking him to come to  Gaurikund. The video below was captured while moving from gaurikund to Sitapur. And one can here the terrifying noise of the river and can feel the small stones coming from the river along with droplets(means with water rocks are flowing ).

The river was looking like boiling milk one cant find any thing not even buses which already flooded into the river.
So we moved quickly. Till Sitapur there was no problem. We heard  some horse owners talking that the horse parking of Ramwada collapsed in to river.But when we reached Sitapur there we found a heavy
traffic and heard a news that the hill was collapsed on road near Phata and will take 24 hours to clear the road. So we decidec to stay in a hotel in Sitapur and decided for night-halt. There were nearly 700 people looking for shelter but all are not lucky, so some decided to sleep in buses and in  other vehicles in parking area.

Some Unseen truth of Kedarnath Disaster(Part-3)