One of the road workers rescued after Friday morning’s avalanche died in hospital at night and disaster teams discovered three bodies on Saturday, taking the death toll in the Uttarakhand tragedy to four.
Five of the 55 labourers affected were still missing while 46 were being treated in hospital for injuries, the defence PRO (Dehradun), Lt Col Manish Srivastava, said.
Seven helicopters as well as “specialised recco radars, UAVs, quadcopters, avalanche rescue dogs, etc” were helping the search for the missing five, the army said.
There were still no answers why the labourers — working on a road-widening project to facilitate pilgrimage to the Badrinath shrine, located about 3.4km from the accident spot – had not been evacuated despite a snowfall and avalanche alert.
As he had done on Friday, chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami gave an evasive reply.
Dhami said: “Everything will be clear once a probe is carried out; let us first save those missing and treat the injured.”
The state Congress alleged that the government had ignored the labourers’ safety to speed up the project, which has a deadline of May 4, when the Badrinath shrine is to reopen to devotees.
The Border Road Organisation had sublet the road-widening project to a private company. The accident spot is in the snow-filled Dabrani area between Mana village and Mana Pass in Chamoli district, close to the Tibet border.
Government sources said construction work was anyway prohibited during this season in the area, weather alert or not.
“Civilian movement is banned there from November to April because of the relentless snowfall, frequent avalanches and glacier collapses,” an official from the state disaster management department said.
“Only the ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Force) and army personnel stay there in their camps. The area is so dangerous that the rescuers had to retire to their base on Friday night because of two more avalanches and continuous snowfall.”
Workers after being rescued following an avalanche, in Mana area of Chamoli district, Saturday, March 1, 2025.
While the India Meteorological Department, Dehradun, had on Monday sounded an orange alert about heavy snowfall, the Defence Geoinformatics Research Establishment in Chandigarh had issued a 24-hour avalanche warning at 5pm on Thursday.
“How the government allowed the road-widening work there in this season, particularly after a government agency issued an orange alert, is inexplicable,” the official said.
“The construction company hired by the BRO had erected eight containers for the labourers along the road, including three near the Alaknanda river. This is not possible without the knowledge of the most senior people inthe government.”
He added: “These three containers are 30 to 25 feet below the road. This is why the rescuers are struggling to reach them.”
The Badrinath shrine is closed in winter and the residents of the area, including the tribal Bhutias, migrate to the lower reaches every year.
“The weathermen had warned long in advance but the government put the lives of the workers at risk to speed up the work,” Uttarakhand Congress vice-president Surya Kant Dhasmana said.
The ITBP, which has a camp near the avalanche site, had started the preliminary rescue operation immediately after the calamity. The army, which too has a camp there, got activated after a few hours following a defence ministry go-ahead.
The two forces evacuated 32 labourers till Friday evening before heavy snowfall put a stop to the rescue operation at night. Fifteen workers and three bodies were brought out on Saturday morning.
Most of the injured have “head injuries and fractures”, ITBP commandant Vijay Kumar said.
One of the survivors is project supervisor Ram Sujan Singh, a resident of Chilkahar in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh.
His neighbour Suresh Kumar told reporters: “We didn’t sleep the whole night and kept trying to contact Sujan and the contractor. The contractor called back this morning (Saturday) and said he (Sujan) was safe and was being treated in hospital.”