Himachal Police scouring inaccessible areas to trace stranded tourists

When Sonia Kathuria from Delhi failed to contact three of her relatives who were on holiday in storm-battered Manali in Himachal Pradesh earlier this week, she began to look for local residents to ask for help.Due to a heavy landslide near Dunkhara on the Kasol-Bhuntar road, the vehicles could not be moved and the tourists had to trek to reach the other sideWith 60,000 tourists being evacuated so far, police teams in Himachal Pradesh are now focusing on inaccessible areas with tough topography and low mobile connectivity to trace stranded persons.

Since July 9, parts of Himachal Pradesh have been swamped by flash floods, heavy rainfall and landslides, which have disrupted telephone networks and electricity. Roads and houses have been swept away amidst landslides. Swollen rivers have overflowed their banks. The police said on Tuesday that at least 31 people had died in rain-related tragedies in the state over the past three days.

After scouring social media sites, Kathuria finally found the phone numbers of some hotel and homestay owners in the area. She contacted one of them, hotel owner Ved Prakash, who made arrangements to look for her relatives in Manali.Since July 9, when the heavy rainfall broke a 50-year record in Himachal Pradesh, Prakash said he has incessantly fielded similar calls for help. He owns four hotels in Manali and Sangla and all of them have opened their doors for stranded tourists for free. For now, 20 rooms are occupied by stranded tourists.

Several tourists are not carrying a lot of cash,” Prakash told Scroll. “They rely on online transaction or card payment. With zero network, they have been forced to vacate hotels over non-payment issues. That is when some hotel owners decided to allow tourists to stay for free.”Prakash is also helping co-ordinate the search for missing tourists by taking calls from relatives and passing on the information to police, or in some cases, contacting hotels where they had last stayed.