Uttarakhand CM Bahuguna promises early return of stranded officials

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna on Saturday promised an early return of officials stranded in the temple town of Kedarnath.

"Our officers who had gone to Kedarnath for cremation of the dead bodies are stranded there from the past two days since choppers are not flying due to inclement weather," said Bahuguna.

"We are closely monitoring the situation and are mulling over as to how we can bring back the workers. There is no village or region in the state where we are not providing food supplies," he added.

Piyush Rautela, the executive director of Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, however, said that the officers were not stranded and were helping in the rescue operation.

"The officers were airlifted to Kedarnath and as of now the roads are still not open so till the time they are airlifted again they would continue working there. It's not they are stranded there," he said.

The state has been devastated by the flash floods and landslides which claimed over 1000 lives, rendered thousands of families homeless while another 10,000 are still reported to be missing.

Over 1,05,000 stranded people were rescued by the personnel of Indian Air Force, Army, the para-military Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in the flood-ravaged state.