36 ambulances, 200 satellite phones, 90
aircrafts, 200 trucks and the grit to move mountains (sometimes
literally) — the armed forces and their logistic coup are the heroes of
the Uttarakhand tragedy. Here’s the story of how they did it
The 40-year-old officer has made more than 150 sorties to Harsil and Badrinath from the military base set up in Joshimath, and rescued close to 2,000 pilgrims in the last 12 days. His role in Operation Rahat — the biggest rescue operation launched by the Indian Air Force till date — is nothing less than heroic. While hostile weather conditions continue to intermittently disrupt rescue work in the northern state, what once seemed like a 10-day job has stretched over weeks.
Torrential downpour channelled by deforested valleys generated floods in the foothills of the Himalayas starting June 14. The worst affected areas were Kedarnath and Harsil, where over 15,000 people have been killed although the government estimates are lower. Close to 1,500 roads and 150 bridges have ‘disappeared’. In Badrinath valley, six stretches of road are washed away and 2.5 km of Lambagarh is the worst patch. In a joint operation launched by the Indian Air Force and Army (who call it Operation Surya Hope), 1.05 lakh people have been rescued till date, but over 3,000 are still reportedly missing across the state. As of Saturday, more than 2,500 pilgrims were still at Badrinath.
As Delhi University professor and head of the department of environmental studies Maharaj Pandit put it in an article published in New Scientist, rampant unauthorised and mindless building activities on the river resulted in this disaster. The Chief Minister, Vijay Bahuguna would rather have us think of this as a nature’s fury.
Putting systems in place
Lt Colonel Karamveer Singh, posted at the Joshimath rescue base, is co-ordinating rescue operations in Badrinath. He spends a lot of time pacifying frayed tempers. As he walks past queues of hundreds waiting to be evacuated from one of the 13 rescue bases set up by the forces — where pilgrims and locals were brought to safety — people call out to him and complain that the army is not doing enough. Singh understands their desperation. Fights frequently erupt over who will enter the rescue shuttle first. One time, the crowd turned violent and came to blows.
To prevent this from recurring, the army began handing out tokens to persons in the evacuation zones. Major Manish Dhaka, also posted at the Joshimath camp, says, “This is a fair method and makes it easy for the people. If at a given time, token number 501 to 550 are being evacuated, those with numbers above 600 needn’t brave the sun or rain for six-eight hours and stand in queue. They can stay in their rooms.” The state has ensured that stay at all hotels is free and tourist vehicles are used for rescue operations.
The forces have set up 13 rescue bases, where stranded pilgrims are being taken to for food, shelter and medicines. From there, people are being ferried to either Dehradun or Delhi, from where they can proceed homeward. At the Dehradun army camp, evacuees are also being given passes that allow free travel on any train or bus across the nation.
At Lambagarh, a rescue camp, army doctor S Mule has opened a well-stocked clinic on a large rock. Due to irregular medicine intake, pilgrims battling hypertension and diabetes are in bad shape. Captain Dr Simarjit Singh Rehsi says, “Four women and two men, all above 70, were brought to me on Friday with dangerously low SpO2 (oxygen saturation) levels. Nobody knows where they were hiding for the past 12 days, but this was a symptom of severe chest infection. We rushed them in an ambulance, nebulised them and then packed them off in the first chopper that landed.”
The Air Force has used up 1.5 lakh litres of Aviation Turbine Fuel in reaching pilgrims, even in places where landing has been risky business. From Gaucher, personnel have been operating over 20 Army Aviation and IAF choppers in Kedarnath and Badrinath — in all 45 aircraft have been pushed in to service. Over 500 Army jawans, 75 IAF and 150 ITBP personnel are operating here, at the moment.
Army officials say that the logistics involved in this operation is of the magnitude of Operation Vijay (the code for the Kargil War in 1999). More than 200 trucks, 90 aircrafts, three dozen ambulances, a dozen communication vehicles and over 200 satellite phones have been sourced from Bareilly, Dehradun and Roorkee.
By air and on foot
To the right of the helipad in Gaucher, a rescue camp in Chamoli district, sits the IAF unit; to the left, is the Army’s. A Pawan Hans hangar doubles up as their control room. “Kedarnath suffered unimaginable devastation. Not only did pilgrims die in large numbers, the bridges and roads leading to the temple town were washed away. With mobile services down, hotels reduced to rubble and pilgrims stranded, accessing Kedarnath was our biggest challenge,” says Brigadier KB Chand. On the night of June 16, they airdropped 110 paratroopers. Through the rain and rubble, the soldiers walked on foot and gathered the stranded. “They carried explosives to blast boulders and set up temporary helipads so that the IAF could swing in,” says Chand.
Flight lieutenant Manish Dahiya, who has been operating an MI-17 in the Kedarnath valley, was instrumental in raising IAF’s rescue stats (20,000 people so far). “Kedarnath’s valleys are the steepest; narrow, vertical, leaving no space for the aircraft to land. Bad weather compounded the risk. In our initial sorties, we airdropped Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Army jawans with 2,500 kg of food, water and medicines in affected pockets; we had to stop pilgrims from starving. The other priority was to take the ailing and injured to safety. Then came the old, women and the children,” says the 27-year-old.
Brigadier JB Chaudhari, also stationed at Gaucher, says supplies were crucial since the stranded had to be convinced to walk to safe evacuation pockets. “Our para guys and jawans motivated them to keep going, walk as much as 15 km a day along rocky terrain, using log and rope bridges. But motivation is useless if there’s nothing here,” he says, pointing to his belly. With kilometres of roads caved in, walking was yet another trial.
Deputy Commander of the Para Brigade, Sandip Chatterjee, operated a team from Jungle Chatti and rescued 1,000 people in two days, by getting them to trudge on fixed ropes and 300-metre ropeways. “With four roads washed away in the 300-metre stretch between Jungle Chatti and Gaurikund, a ropeway was critical. We were forcibly pulling wives away from their husbands, because women had to be rescued first,” he says stoically.
Parandekar admits to the challenge, when he emerges from the cockpit at Badrinath, his Ray-Bans intact, lining up a batch of 20. “Manoeuvring around Harsil and Badrinath is very tough. But each time we ferry people to safety, we are defeating this difficulty and closing in on victory.”
At Gaucher, two lady IAF officers refuse to talk to us, eager to get into the cockpit of their Cheetahs. They are overheard telling their male colleagues that they will beat them at clocking more sorties that day. Squadron Leader Manoj Gautam, who had completed 14 sorties by Saturday noon, is held back by his juniors so that he drinks the cup of tea that’s been waiting for him. Looking at the sky, Gautam says, “Tea can wait. Before the weather turns worse, I think I can squeeze in a few more rounds.”
The hazard that pilots like him are taking was evident when a Mi 17 V5 helicopter ferrying rescue personnel from Kedarnath to the temporary air base in Gaucher crashed last Tuesday in the difficult terrain north of Gaurikund. All 20 people aboard (nine ITBP, six National Disaster Response Force; personnel and five crew members) the Barrackpore-based 157 Helicopter Unit were killed.
Road to somewhere
As the joint rescue operation involving the Army, IAF and the ITBP took off from multiple bases — Jolly Grant, Sahasthadhara, Harsil, Kedarnath, Guptakashi, Gaucher, Joshimath, Dharasu, Lambagarh, Pandukeshwar, Uttarkashi, Govind Ghat, Gauri Kund — the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) that builds and maintains arterial roads and infrastructure along the country’s borders, was saddled with a gargantuan task. The 32-km stretch from Joshimath to Badrinath, for instance, was wiped out at Govind Ghat, Pandukeshwar, Lambagarh and Hanuman Chatti, cutting off Badrinath from all supplies. On NH-58, 300 km away from Dehradun on the way to Joshimath, landslide debris has shot down vast stretches. At several points, it seems as if there’s no way ahead unless you are willing to dive over a 10-feet-wide crack.
The BRO’s role is evident when you do the math: While a makeshift rope bridge helped rescue one person every five minutes, when 150 BRO personnel aided by 700 labourers completed the 2.5 km Burma bridge at Lambagarh, they assisted the rescue of 500 in just as much time. While images of jawans and ITBP personnel carrying pilgrims and luggage on their backs along road-collapsed stretches is now a symbol of the tragedy, it’s the BRO’s fight against time to rebuild walkways and motorable paths that will help clear the 1,500 vehicles abandoned on various washed-out stretches.
Major Rahul Shrivastava of BRO, says, “Since civilians are being rescued in the mornings, we have the night to carry out our work. From Hanuman Chatti to Govind Ghat, where 30 km of road has vanished, we are blasting mountains around it to source raw material that can be flattened using machines to make a road. Constant landslides, the rain and surging rivers are hell-bent on destroying whatever progress we make. But we aren’t backing out.”
Until agencies like the BRO rebuild transport lines, it’s the armed forces that have had to think up smart strategies to maximise survivor count. Colonel Pankaj Sabherwal and Colonel Pravin Sharma of the Army Aviation Corps have steered hundreds of pilgrims to safety in the Benkauli-Lambagarh stretch, where they were stranded on the Alaknanda’s bank. The duo used their Cheetahs to create a sort of heli-bridge, making repeated to and fro trips between banks to pick up and drop the marooned. “It’s high emotional pressure when you are continuously flying and rescuing. You want to rescue as many as you can, but you also have to be careful. Staying calm isn’t easy,” Sabherwal confesses.
Havildar Gokul Singh would agree. The after-dark destruction at Kedarnath left thousands stuck on one end of Govind Ghat, several of them pilgrims visiting 17th century Sikh shrine Hemkunt Sahib gurdwara. Three hundred jawans, including Singh were rushed to the spot. One jawan was dropped into the river rapids, carrying three ropes, which he’d lock at the other bank to create a ropeway. “He was almost swept away before he managed to do the job. Then, 250 of us laid our bodies in a line on the rope, each holding the first rope with our outstretched arms and the third with our toes. One mistake and we could have landed in the river,” remembers Singh. They held on for six hours and saw 500 people walk over their bodies to safety.
Women who had lost their clothes in the floods were handed out uniforms and boots by the jawans, who themselves walked back in bare essentials. While most embraced the jawans, one woman slapped a jawan for “reaching late” to rescue her.
The ITBP, known for their mastery over the mountains, managed a similar river rescue at Som Prayag. ITBP Deputy Commandent Ranbir Singh Negi and his team of 70 were greeted by 5,000 people perched on a mountain at the other end. “We were surprised by their cheering…it was as if they had spotted Amitabh Bachchan,” says Negi. Using just a log and rope, the team evacuated the entire bunch over the next five days.
Loss in the ranks
The morning after the chopper crash, at the NTRO office in Dehradun, Air Commodore Rajesh Isser, who has been in charge of co-ordination of IAF’s Operation Rahat, was figuring the logistics of recovering bodies from Gaurikund with commandos from Garud, the elite Special Forces Unit of the IAF. “We have lost our best officers and our best helicopter, but it won’t affect our focus,” he says a bit distracted. Apart from operating the giant fleet of choppers, the base is also where strategies are hatched, and communication and navigation vehicles that enable hundreds of satellite phones, radio devices and data processing systems to function stand. At least 35 commissioned officers from the rank of Flying Officer to Air Commodore, and more than 100 staffers are operating advanced helicopters and aircrafts from this headquarters.
On the day of the crash, the Som Prayag ITBP team returned to its
Gaucher base a winner to realise they had lost six colleagues. In what’s
perhaps symbolic of the heroic might of the forces, DIG Amit Prasad
lined them up, and hugging each one of them said, “You must have
seen the worst sight of your life. Six of us have died, but we have so
many more to rescue.
Source: http://to.ly/mbMy
