First snowfall of the season brings good tidings for Uttarakhand
The shower coupled with the snow is billed to be a timely gift for the rabi and horticulture crops of the state.
A cargo chopper of the Indian Air Force (IAF), deployed for ferrying reconstruction material, crashed in Kedarnath (Ruderprayag) on Tuesday morning.
The incident created shockwave and the reconstruction staff rushed to the accident site for launching rescue operation. No causality took place and a pilot, co-pilot and four other IAF staff escaped with minor injuries.
The Indian Air Force’s MI-17 began its special operation to shift reconstruction material from Guptkashi to Kedarnath on Tuesday morning. In the fist shift, the chopper took a generator set and in the second was carrying shuttering items- when the mishape took place. The reconstruction team immediately started the rescue operation and saved life of a technician and other IAF staff stuck inside the aircraft.
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The chopper crashed near the helipad ground at about 8.30 am. Wing Commander S.S Multaney, co-pilot Squadron leader R.M Chaudhary and four Indian Air Force staff- including H.R Ojha, N Rajan, Akhilesh and A Kausik- were luck to escape without any major injury. Technician Akliesh sustained minor injury on head and leg.
The injured were provided first aid in Kedarnath. The Indian Air Force started the process of shifting the staff from Kedarnath to Bareilly, but due to bad weather the operation failed to materialize on Tuesday. The weather in Kedarnath suddenly changed and due to low visibility no flying took place in the day.
Rudraprayag district magistrate Mangesh Ghildiyal said, “ None of the IAF staff sustained major injury in the crash.”
After the 2013 floods, reconstruction work is going on in Kedarnath. The revamp work is on high priority of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The PM continues to do regular monitoring of the work underway in the pilgrimage centre.
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