Sajid Raina
Baltal, Jul 9: “I have seen this horrible scene with my own eyes. Within a minute, my life was spared and I returned safely from there,” said Subhangar, an eyewitness of the flash floods which occurred near the holy cave shrine of Amarnath and swept away pilgrims, killing 16 and leaving at least 40 others injured.
The eyewitness said that he does not think it happened because of a cloudburst. “There were three mountains, one of which had a lot of snow on it from where a large amount of water flowed down. Even rocks were with it,” he said, adding that the people who were resting in tents were swept away by the water.
“Two people with two horses and an army officer were swept away before my eyes,” he said, adding that one girl was in so much trouble that both her parents were swept away in the fast flowing water and she was crying out loud, expressing her helplessness. “The scenes were horrible. I’m still scared. I think there are still a lot of people trapped. The condition of the road to Baltal was very dilapidated but without eating or drinking, I walked about sixteen kilometers by foot and came back at night,” the witness said.
“The horrible scene I saw there should never be seen by anyone. I escaped from there just a minute apart,” he said.
Similarly, Amar, another pilgrim from UP, said that the flow of dirty water was strong and people were running ahead of it. “Every structure that came in front of the water was washed away,” he said.
