Braving rains, 2,416 more pilgrims leave Jammu for Amarnath shrine

Braving heavy rains, 2,416 more pilgrims left on the Amarnath Yatra from a base camp here on Thursday, officials said.

This was the 25th batch of pilgrims to leave Jammu for the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

As many as 3,01,818 pilgrims have paid obeisance at the cave shrine till Wednesday evening.

Over 3.30 lakh pilgrims from across the country have so far registered themselves for the 46-day-long pilgrimage, which takes place from the 36-km Pahalgam track in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district and 14-km Baltal route in Ganderbal district.

Thursday's batch, comprising 1,789 males, 474 females, seven children and 146 seers, left in a fleet of 99 vehicles from Bhagwati Nagar base camp here for twin base camps of Pahalgam and Baltal in Kashmir Valley, they added.

There was heavy rains in Jammu, they said.

Four Amarnath pilgrims have died on Tuesday and Wednesday en route the cave shrine, taking the death toll in this year's pilgrimage to 30, the officials said.

The pilgrimage commenced on July 1 from both Baltal and Pahalgam routes.

Multi-tier security arrangements have been made for smooth and successful conduct of the pilgrimage which concludes on August 15.

As many as 2.85 lakh pilgrims had paid obeisance at the cave shrine last year, while the number of pilgrims was 3.52 lakh in 2015, 3,20 lakh in 2016 and 2.60 lakh in 2017.