NEW DELHI: Five persons, including three children, died on Saturday (April 12) when a car in which they were travelling fell into the River Alaknanda near Bhalle village on the Rishikesh-Badrinath Highway ahead of Devprayag.
A seriously injured woman was admitted to the Base Hospital at Srikot in Srinagar. Four of the deceased hailed from Faridabad, while one was from Roorkee.
The incident took place on Saturday morning when the car driver lost control over the vehicle, which skidded into the River Alaknanda 300 metres down the gorge.
Five of the six persons travelling in the car were found dead inside the vehicle, while a grievously injured woman was rescued safely and rushed to the nearby Base Hospital at Srikot in Srinagar.
Of the five deceased persons, four were a family from Faridabad in Haryana, while two others, including the injured woman, were their relatives from Roorkee.
They were going to Gauchar to attend a marriage when the tragedy struck.
The State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and police informed that a rescue and search operation was launched immediately upon receiving the information about the accident in the morning.
They managed to rescue Anita Devi, 45, wife of Madan Singh Negi, who was injured and stuck on top of the car, which had sunk in the river, leaving only the rooftop visible.
Rescue teams from the police and SDRF began searching the river for the remaining passengers after the injured woman told them about other people in the car.
Bodies of five people were recovered from the car after rescuers pulled it out of the river.
The deceased were identified as Sunil Gusain (44), his wife Meena Gusain (40), and their sons Dhairya (14) and Sujal (12), all residents of Sainik Colony in Faridabad.
The fifth victim was Aditya Negi (16), a teenager from Durga Colony in Roorkee.
The police station in-charge, Sub-Inspector Mahipal Singh Rawat, stated that Sunil Gusain had left Faridabad with his family on Friday night to attend a wedding function at Gauchar in Chamoli.
On the way, he picked up his wife’s elder sister, Anita, and her son, Aditya, from Roorkee to travel together for the wedding function.
All the five bodies have been sent to the Base Hospital for post-mortem examination. - The Statesman/ANN
