Gopal Joshi, one of 55 construction workers housed in containers near Mana, came out expecting a morning sheathed in silence like every day. What he met with was a roaring cascade of snow coming right at them with a ferocious speed. The avalanche, common in winter in the area, eventually left the site in a state of ruin, and the workers plodding in thick snow to outrun a veritable entombment.

Fifty workers were rescued, while four of them died on Saturday.

Joshi, a native of Narayanbagar in Chamoli district, had been operating an accelerator machine for the last several months. The group was employed at a BRO camp by Vijay Infra Construction Company.

It all happened in a jiffy, Joshi, who was admitted for treatment along with his 22 colleagues in the Army’s Jyotirmath hospital, recalled.

The weather was as bad as it had been for the last few days, he said.

“Snow was falling outside. The incident must have happened around 6 am. As soon as we came out of the container, we heard a loud thunder. When we looked towards the top, we saw a deluge of snow rolling towards us. I shouted to alert my companions and ran. There was already several feet of snow due to which we could not run fast. After two hours, the soldiers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police came to rescue us,” he said.

Joshi and his companions were brought from Mana to Jyotirmath on Saturday by army helicopters for treatment at an army hospital. He bore a minor injury on his head and pain in chest.

Vipin Kumar of Himachal Pradesh, who hurt his back, said he was buried in snow for about 15 minutes.

“I was able to get out of the snow only when the avalanche stopped,” said Kumar, who said it was his second birth.

Another worker, Manoj Bhandari, said he woke up to a “mountain of snow” sliding from the peak. “I shouted to alert everyone and ran behind the loader machine parked nearby to save myself. Three workers from Mathura said their bid to escape the avalanche was hindered by “several feet of snow.” Jagbir Singh of Amritsar, Punjab, said he and his companions ran towards Badrinath.

Most of the 19 people who were rescued and brought to the Army Hospital here had injuries on their back, head, hands, and legs.

Two of them who suffered serious wounds were sent to AIIMS, Rishikesh, by a helicopter.

The workers said they were living in five containers set up by a roadside.

The site had 55 labourers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, and were contracted by GREF. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)