Two persons died and four were grievously injured on Munsyari-Gaurikund Highway in Uttarakhand when boulders fell on their SUV during a landslide on Monday.

Two others suffered minor injuries.

Residents said that the area had already been declared a sensitive zone following incessant rain, but the authorities did not stop the Chardham pilgrims from taking the route.

Police said the pilgrims were going from Sonprayag to Gaurikund and had planned to reach Kedarnath when a huge boulder fell on their SUV at Muntakiya village in Rudraprayag district.

The deceased have been identified as Mohit Chauhan, 30, and Rajeshwari Devi, 35. Those injured are Pratibha Singh, 25, Mamta Singh, 35, Pankaj Singh, 24, and Naveen Singh Rawat, 35. They have been admitted to a higher referral centre in Rudraprayag.

Two Uttarkashi residents, Rita Singh, 30, and Chandra Singh, 68 — both from the same family — also suffered injuries.

Chandan Rawat, a local, said: “Landslides are occurring in Muntakiya every day. Boulders as big as a room are falling from the hills onto the road, but the check posts are open for the pilgrims. People believe that it is safe when the road is open, but it is not true. If there is rain, there will be frequent landslides.”

Rawat claimed that six new landslide zones had developed in the Jungle Chatti area of Rudraprayag ever since small blasts were carried out in the hills to make roads.

“Several agencies had reported about the highly sensitive spots. But the government doesn’t listen to such warnings,” said Ravi Chopra, an environmental scientist from Uttarakhand.

A total of 15,000 landslide zones have been identified in Uttarakhand by research groups in the recent past. Of this, 22 per cent are very sensitive spots, including Muntakiya, where the pilgrims were killed on Monday.

Vinod Kumar Suman, secretary, Uttarakhand disaster management, said: “The weather is very bad and it is raining continuously. We are treating the landslide-prone zones to minimise their sensitivity.”

Sources in the government said the state had witnessed over 250 incidents of landslides at different places since May this year.

In Chamoli (Garhwal division), a bridge built over Tamka Nallah to connect the district with the China border was swept away on Monday when its water level rose sharply. Source said this had blocked the movement of the army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police apart from locals.