Six labourers who were reported missing on Sunday after a landslide triggered by a cloudburst hit their campsite at an under-construction hotel in Silai Band in Uttarkashi are yet to be traced.
Sources claimed there was little chance of their survival, but rescuers would have to continue the search for at least the next 72 hours before calling it a day.
A total of 19 workers were sleeping in four tents when the landslide struck. Ten of them had fled the place soon after the cloudburst.
The State Disaster Response Force had found three bodies on Sunday.
Harikrishna Chaudhary, a labourer from Nepal who escaped unhurt, told reporters in Uttarkashi: “We were sleeping in four tents. I woke up after realising that our tent was filled with water and its level was rising fast. I tried to wake up the others and ran away from there. When we looked back, we saw that the tents, the part of the Yamunotri Highway beside which we were sleeping and the structure that we had built had all been washed away.”
Kirti Bahadur, another labourer, said he had to break open a window to escape after a boulder blocked the door of his hutment.
Prashant Arya, the district magistrate of Uttarkashi, said the pilgrimage to Yamunotri had been put on hold.
“Some devotees who were on their way to Yamunotri were stranded in Syan
Chatti because of the landslides. We are allowing the Gangotri pilgrims to proceed in limited numbers because of heavy rainfall and continuous landslides in the hills,” he said.
A source said pilgrims were permitted to travel to Kedarnath and Badrinath.
Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami advised caution and said the pilgrims must follow official instructions.
The government has earmarked some camps where the pilgrims can stay. Food and medicines are available there.
Two dead labourers have been identified as Duje Lal, 55, of Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh and Kewal Bist, 43, of Nepal. The identity of the third deceased is yet to be established.