As many as 300 stranded people, including all students from IIT-Rorkee, were rescued on Tuesday from the snowbound Lahaul valley of Himachal Pradesh in a joint operation by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO and the district administration, officials said.
The team of IIT students had gone for trekking to Hampta Pass and were supposed to return to Manali. An alert was raised after they were not returned on Monday night.
“Rescued students of IIT-Roorkee were taken to an Army base camp at Sissu from where they were brought to Manali via Rohtang tunnel,” an official said.
The Indian Air Force will start airlifting the stranded people today, comprising locals and tourists. They will be brought to Kullu and Manali towns.
The Lahaul-Spiti district witnessed about 4-feet snowfall till Monday, due to which the Rohtang Pass and several inner roads got blocked.
The border road organisation (BRO) has cleared about six-km-long Keylong-Stingri road and is working on to clear other blocked inner roads.
CM Jai Ram Thakur undertook an aerial survey of rain-ravaged Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti, to take stock of the situation arisen out of recent snowfall.
At least 20 people were killed in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh as the northern states in the country were hit by incessant rainfall since Sunday.
On Monday a red alert was issued in both Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.
Schools in most of the districts in Himachal were closed on Monday as a precautionary measure.
A number of houses in low-lying areas, especially in Mandi, Kangra, and Chamba districts were evacuated to prevent casualties.
