180 Tourists Trapped in Kempty Falls Landslide Were Rescued

Mussoorie’s Kempty Falls faced something really unfortunate this Sunday. Around 180 tourists who were trapped in the landslide are evacuated from the location.

Mussoorie is one of the most popular holiday destinations of India and every year tourists gather to enjoy the beauty of the place. Holiday experts say that usually, this is not the ideal pick season for Mussoorie. August and September are monsoon months and like every hill station, the monsoon is not the best time. The reason is once again proved by the famous Kempty Falls which led to a flood-like situation after a heavy downpour this Sunday.

As per the reports from the locality, the water from the falls started spilling over the road. The initial part was the landslide that accumulated all the debris on the road, and then the water from the 40 ft. waterfall came down flooding the roads. Eventually, the roads were blocked. The tourists who were present in the location had no other way than climbing up the hills to secure themselves from the landslide and flood. As per reports, there were several shops in this famous tourist spot of Mussoorie. All these, shops were destroyed as water rushed into them.

One of the local shopkeepers explained the situation. He said, “Water came rushing through the waterfall and within a few seconds, the road was flooded. The people all around started panicking but we collected ourselves, and soon informed the police and they started the rescue operation.” The state officer of the area, Prakash Pokhriyal informed that the police were able to complete the rescue operation successfully. Around 180 tourists who were blocked in the area was evacuated. He also admitted that the local people and the shopkeepers helped them a lot to execute the rescue operation. After the rescue was done, the entire area was inspected by the top officials of the department to ensure that everyone is rescued and safe.

As per the reports from the officials, the rescue team comprised of eight competent police personnel. All of them were in their life jackets. The team was found using ropes to perform the actions related to the rescue operation.

A video has been shared in the social media which shows how the police officials were rescuing the people from the area. The video also shows that the local residents were equally active when it came to helping the tourists. The total operation of rescue continued till an hour after which all the tourists were safely evacuated from the situation. As the roads were blocked due to the flooding, there was a lot of difficulty in crossing those. The women and children tourists were assisted by the local residents to cross that flooded road.

Courtesy: The Times of India, YouTube

The officials confirmed that the situation of Kempty Falls is normal now. But when asked about the future possibilities of such incidents, they were unable to say anything. They rather informed that as per the reports, the weather condition of the state is not going to improve very soon. The weather forecast from the department denoted that there would be heavy rains in the upcoming days and so it is better to avoid areas that are prone to landslide. The situation won’t change within the next 4-5 days. There were reports that earlier this year in July, the Kempty Falls was closed and the reason stated was the bad weather condition. It was reopened recently seeing the positive changes in the weather. The police said that the debris of the landslide will be removed soon and until that is cleared the place won’t be available for the tourist visit. Once that is done, the spot would be again open for all.

Prakash Pokhriyal said that as it was a Sunday, the crowd was dense in the tourist spot. People came there for short weekends from Punjab, Delhi, and Rajasthan. There were even people from different localities of Uttarakhand who went there for a short visit when they had to face such a mishap. The officer also informed that this rescue operation was a one of a kind. In this rescue operation, the police did not take the help of SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) and handled the operation efficiently without any reported casualties.

Landslides in this season are going too frequent. The tourists must be notified about that and accordingly plan the trip. There was a report last week, about the landslide in Tehri. Heavy rainfall remains the cause of such uncalled incidents. In that incident, the Chamoli district got affected, Two brothers got buried under the debris caused by the landslide. A similar accident was seen in the Kot village of Uttarakhand last Wednesday. The village was affected by landslide and homes got devastated. Due to the collapse of homes in the village, there were reports of three deaths who were inside their homes when the incident occurred.