Kedarnath cloud burst & flash flood disaster rattle us all & some of us who had been there are finding it difficult to come to terms with it. I mean how can a place which for past has been a source of strength and peace of mind for billions of followers can cause so much destruction.
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I had good memories of Kedarnathji when i visited it in last week of September 2007 as it was so beautiful so peaceful with happy pilgrims all around and now when i look it in news only shrine is intact but destruction is all around.
Still so many people are missing & exact number of causalities is not known as their is no process off registration of tourists at any checkpost or in temple and hotels are also not sincere with records but sadly most of them were washed out. So the irony is that we dont even know the exact number of tourists or pilgrims visited, trapped or swept away. And the magnitude of such disasters is so high as we live in today & never planned for tomorrow & when something like this happened we are totally clueless & at the mercy of nature. Our national disaster response force is still at nascent stage & is hardly posted anywhere in Himalayas as due to our no governance model we are taking too long to place systems in place which is leading to more chaos in such disasters. Only silver lining in these disasters is our forces lik army airforce which u can always rely on & deliver it well though they also need to be modernize to bring urgency & efficiency in such operations. I wish we had learnt something from cloud burst & flash flood disaster of Ladakh in 2010 which was on similar lines may be we could have saved more lives.
Also time to regulate the number of pilgrims. God will understand!
I agree. While on this, pls read my post – Uttarakhand tragedy and the “Asafal yatra”!!! – http://wp.me/p1dZc2-fN
Feedback most welcome !