July 8: In response to humanitarian situation arising out of more than 1,500 Indian pilgrims stranded in Hilsa and Simikot during their journey to Kailash Mansarovar, Kathmandu-based Embassy of India said it swiftly mounted rescue operations since July 2 to help facilitate evacuation of the stranded pilgrims to safer locations in Nepal.

As part of the rescue operations, the embassy deployed its officials and representatives with medicines in all the affected areas including Hilsa, Simikot, Nepalgunj and Surkhet to facilitate possible assistance, including medical check-ups of elderly and ailing pilgrims.

An emergency control room with contact numbers of the embassy officials has also been functioning 24X7 since July 2 to cater to the needs of the stranded pilgrims and their family members’ queries, the embassy said in a press statement. According to the embassy, the emergency control room is equipped with 8-member multilingual personnel (Hindi/English/Tamil/Telugu/ Kannada/Malayalam language speakers) to avoid language barriers.

As of July 6, with concerted efforts, a total of 1,225 stranded pilgrims were airlifted from Simikot to Nepalgunj and Surkhet, the embassy said in the statement. For pilgrims airlifted to Surkhet, the embassy also put in bus service to ferry pilgrims to Nepalgunj. Likewise, the embassy also worked with tour operators to airlift around 675 stranded pilgrims at Hilsa to Simikot for onward evacuation to Nepalgunj and Surkhet. During the evacuation process, 74 commercial flights were operated and the embassy additionally pressed in private choppers, MI-16 along with Nepal Army helicopters that made more than 142 sorties in the difficult terrains of Hilsa-Simikot-Nepalgunj section.