Avalanche again hits hills near Kedarnath temple

Avalanche continued to strike Kedarnath region as the devotees witnessed a snow storm on the hills of Kedarnath around 6 a.m. on Saturday. Seeing the snow storm, the devotees who reached Kedarnath got panicked.

"A powder snow avalanche was reported early morning around 6am on Saturday around six to seven kilometre away from Kedarnath Shrine in the Chorabari glacial lake region and no damage or rise in water level in the Saraswati River has been reported so far,” Yogendra Singh, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Badrinath Kedarnath temple committee(BKTC) was quoted as saying by The Hindustan Times.

As per the information, there is no news of any damage so far. The administration team is going to inspect the site after reaching there.

Shri Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee President Ajendra Ajay also said, "There was no damage to Kedarnath temple. There has been an avalanche on the hills of Kedarnath. But the temple is safe. There is no damage to the temple."

This is the second snow storm on the Kedarnath hills within a few days. Earlier on September 22, there was an avalanche in Chorabari Glacier behind Kedarnath dham.

Chorabari Glacier is situated at a distance of about 5 km behind Kedarnath temple. It is raining heavily in the state for the last few days.

As per a report in livemint.com, National Highway (NH)- 109 at Rudraprayag was blocked on Thursday, with long queues of vehicles after a sudden landslide led to the roll down of debris from the hill near Tarsali village in Rudraprayag.