When residents of an Uttarkashi village saw death rolling down a mountain

Suddenly, all of them heard what sounded like an explosion. They looked up and saw a mountain of water coming down into the villages. Panwar had to scramble for cover, and the others were lucky the water took a different path than they did.

In an instant, everything had changed.

The flash flood, which hit the village of Dharali, is feared to have killed several people, with authorities estimating that over 60 are missing. Two bodies have been retrieved so far, and rescue operations are set to enter their fourth day on Friday. The flood swept away over 30 hotels and shops after it struck the market area, which is a stopover for most tourists going to Gangotri.

The flood struck at a time when eight adjacent villages, including Dharali and Mukhba, hold the same festival for the devta. Several visitors — friends and family of village residents — had gone to the region just to attend the festival. The tragedy has left several of them dead or missing.

Panwar lost his cousin, Akash, whose was the first body to be recovered. He said he was in the market until after 1 pm on Tuesday. “My house is just five minutes away, and I was heading home for lunch when I thought I ought to go to the temple. I rushed there after informing my mother. A puja was going on at the temple, and drums were reverberating around me. But just when it was my turn to offer flowers, I heard what sounded like a bomb going off,” he recalled.

“The drums stopped, and we heard people screaming and others whistling from across the river. There was a mass of water fast approaching us. All of us scrambled for cover and ran up the hill,” he said.

Panwar’s house was not in the path of the water, which, however, did sweep away his relative’s hotel. His 32-year-old cousin, Akash, was on the riverbank when the water came crashing down.

“It was raining the whole day, but no one anticipated anything of this magnitude to happen,” Panwar said, after being airlifted from Harsil to Uttarkashi town with his wife and parents on Thursday.

The flood struck at a time when eight adjacent villages, including Dharali and Mukhba, hold the same festival for the devta. (Express Photo)

Ashok Semwal, one of the priests at Gangotri, was at his native Mukhba village to carry out a puja at the temple when the flood hit.

“It was raining, and villagers were slowly gathering at the temple when I stepped out of my house. However, before I could move further, a roaring sound distracted me. Then came water, debris, and dust. Everyone was screaming and whistling before it even dawned upon us, but nothing could be done,” he said. Dharali, he says, was the source of livelihood for most people from the two villages. At Dharali, hotels and homestays, along with vehicles plying on the route to the dham, were availed by tourists on their way to Gangotri.

Jagvinder Kumar was also airlifted on Thursday from Mukhba to Uttarkashi town after two days of staying totally cut off from the world. He said his puja shop was one of the places Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped by when he visited Mukhba earlier this year to promote winter tourism in the village — the winter seat of the Gangotri Dham idol.

On Tuesday afternoon, just as Kumar was considering going to the temple after lunch, he heard the thunderous roar of the water. His house is located on the farthest side of the village, making it closer to the bridge that connects them to Dharali. “I rushed out and could not figure out where the sound was coming from. Suddenly, the water level rose, and I called my neighbour, who works at Dharali. He picked up and I screamed into the phone. Sensing that something was amiss, he got out. Then came the debris, in a monstrous wave. By then, he had gotten near the bridge, away from death and destruction,” Kumar said.

He is now lodged at his brother’s house in Uttarkashi town. He has decided not to go back until phone connectivity, electricity, and clean water return to the village. He now wonders about the precariousness of life in Mukhba. “What if it rains again? What if it is Mukhba’s turn next? I watched people die, struggle to get out of their houses, and avoid sinking in the muck as they moved,” he said.

For Dr Mallik of the Wildlife Institute of India, the scenes of destruction that he witnessed have left him with a sense of dread even after he returned to the institute in Dehradun. He relives that day in his dreams, he said. “We were having a great time, having visited Gangotri the day before and roamed around in Harsil (which was also struck by floods later). We were taking photos from Dharali and Harsil and sending them to friends and family. They marvelled at the beauty of the region,” he said.

On Tuesday, Mallik and his friends were talking to several young people who had gathered to attend the festival when the water came down. “Though everyone started screaming, whistling, and dialling their acquaintances, none of them could make themselves heard over the din of the river and the drums at the temple below. We watched people run and get overpowered by the tide. Some people were swept away with the building they were in and realised it midway. A man jumped from the second floor of a building into the muck, but was helped into a vehicle by a few others. Some people opened their doors to see muck at their threshold and nowhere to run.”

“There were women conducting yajna at Kalp Kedar temple, a political party meeting was underway, and tourists like us were roaming around, but only those on one side of the village could flee to safety. These images are branded in my brain,” Mallik said.

Later, when the National Defence Response Force arrived, the villagers helped them with food. “The NDRF gave us their satellite phones so we could call home for two minutes and calm them. My brother had called the institute after watching the video, panicked,” Mallik said.