As soon as we got out of the container…(got out ) 

Jyotirmath: Many of the 55 workers living in a container near Mana village in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district   have narrated their eyewitness accounts of the day when their camp was destroyed by an avalanche. Gopal Joshi, one of the workers trapped in the accident, said that he went out  (got out )  on Friday hoping for a morning wrapped in silence like every day. But, instead of silence, he saw a flood of snow coming towards him at a fast speed. The avalanches that occur in winter in this region eventually completely destroyed the place where they were working.

‘It all happened in a flash’

After the avalanche, the workers were trapped in a thick layer of snow. 50 workers were rescued, while 4 of them died on Saturday. Joshi, a native of Narayanbagh in Chamoli district, was operating an accelerator machine for the last several months. All these workers were employed by Vijay Infra Construction Company at the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp. Joshi recalled that it all happened in a flash. He was admitted to the Army’s Jyotirmath Hospital for treatment along with his 22 colleagues.

‘We heard a loud thunder’
Joshi said that the weather was as bad as the last few days. He said, ‘Snow was falling outside. The incident must have happened around 6 am. As soon as we got out of the container, we heard a loud thunder. When we looked up, a snow deluge was heading towards us. I shouted to alert my colleagues and ran from there. There was already several feet of snow there, due to which we could not run fast. After 2 hours, Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel came to rescue us.’

‘Shouted to alert everyone’

Joshi and his colleagues were brought from Mana to Jyotirmath by an army helicopter on Saturday, where they were admitted to the army hospital for treatment. He suffered minor head and chest injuries. Vipin Kumar of Himachal Pradesh suffered back injuries. Vipin said that he was buried in the snow for about 15 minutes. Kumar said, ‘I was able to get out of the snow only when the avalanche stopped. This is my second birth.’ Another laborer named Manoj Bhandari said that he woke up due to the sliding of a ‘mountain of snow’ from the peak. Bhandari said, ‘I shouted to alert everyone and ran behind the loader machine parked nearby to save myself.’

Most of the workers suffered injuries on their bodies
3 laborers from Mathura said that their attempt to escape the avalanche was hampered due to the frozen snow there. Jagbir Singh from Amritsar in Punjab said he and his companions ran towards Badrinath. Most of the 19 people who were rescued and brought to the Army hospital here had sustained injuries on their bodies. Two of them were seriously injured and were airlifted to AIIMS in Rishikesh by helicopter. The labourers said they were living in five containers placed on the roadside. There were 55 labourers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir at the spot, who were contracted by GREF.