Amarnath Yatra suspended from Jammu due to inclement weather

Jammu: The Amarnath Yatra has been suspended from Jammu due to inclement weather conditions and no fresh batch was allowed to proceed from here to the base camps of the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said.

A flash flood triggered by a cloudburst near the cave shrine on Friday afternoon has led to the death of least 16 people. Around 40 people are still missing. Meanwhile, officials said on Sunday that hopes of finding those missing in the Amarnath flash floods alive are fading by the hour even as the rescuers are making last-ditch efforts to look for any survivor and the Army has pressed heavy machinery into service to restore the track to the holy cave shrine in the south Kashmir Himalayas.

"The rescue operations are going on as personnel from various agencies are clearing the debris in the hope of finding any survivor," a State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) official said. He said most of the debris clearance is being done at the areas pointed at by sniffer dogs.

"We are still hopeful but anyone still alive under that debris will be a miracle," the official said. He said there has been no breakthrough as far as finding the survivors or even recovering a new body is concerned. Besides sniffer dogs, the rescuers are also using hand-held thermal imagers and other sophisticated devices to check for any sign of life under the mounds of debris.

Meanwhile, the Army has pressed heavy machinery into service in order to restore the route to the cave shrine at the earliest.

"Army engineers are working round the clock to clear the debris and restore the route to the holy cave," the official said.

Army jawans are supplementing the efforts of JCB excavators in clearing the route to the cave housing a naturally formed ice-lingam.

The official, however, added that inclement weather can play spoilsport in the restoration efforts.

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.

Over one lakh pilgrims have offered prayers at the cave shrine, the officials said.

A total of 69,535 pilgrims have left in 10 batches from the Bhagwati Nagar base camp in Jammu for the Valley since June 29, the day the first batch of pilgrims was flagged off by Lt Governor Manoj Sinha.

The yatra is scheduled to end on August 11 on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan.