New Delhi, June 27, 2013: Never in his wildest dreams had Laxmi Narayan Soni, travelling along with 10 other members of his family, fathomed being caught in flash floods. But that is precisely what his family encountered just a day after they had visited the holy shrine of Kedarnath. But unlike the shrine, which bore the brunt of the floods and whose surroundings now lie in complete ruins, the Soni family managed to escape unscathed.

The family, however, had to endure the vagaries of nature for many days; they got stuck in Uttarakhand hills a little downstream at Son Prayag.

Comprising mostly couples between the ages of 50 and 60 years, the family had gone to Uttarakhand “with the hope of receiving divine blessings from the holy land of Kedarnath.’’ But, as Mr. Soni said, “the Lord did not shy away from giving the blessings but nature had other plans for us.’’

Now from the comfort of his home in Ashok Nagar here, Mr. Soni and his wife Leeladevi recall the horrors they overcame. “We have seen so much blood, pain and destruction. We did get to visit Kedarnath before all hell broke loose there, but the difficulties we went through have been etched deep in our hearts.”

On June 14, the group visited Kedarnath and returned to their hotel, located on the banks of the confluence of Basuki and Mandakini, at Son Prayag on June 15. It was on the evening of June 16 the calamity struck and the trying days for the group began.

 “An earthquake around 6 p.m. made us all run out of our hotel and what we witnessed chilled our bones… Jeeps, cars and six hotels were swept away in the floods right before our eyes”, recalled Mr. Soni, who initially confused the rumblings caused by the flash floods with a tremor.

“We ran for our lives. Then we spent two days uphill under a shed as my wife has a health problem. All hoteliers and residents had left for the higher reaches of the mountains to save their life. We too were forced out of the shed and sent away by two policemen when the water level began rising. How we made it through those two days is all due to the blessings we received at Kedarnath”, said Mr. Soni.

 The group then took shelter in a school in Rampur. “After nearly three days of staying hungry, we finally had rice and dal here,’’ he recounted. But once the school ran out of food, they had to move on.

 From the Guptakashi temple, the family got a jeep which took them to Shantikunj. “The Rs.1,800 they spend for the short journey in hindsight looks a pittance when compared to what we had to endure,’’ Mr. Soni said. Another journey later, the family found itself in Haridwar, from where a special train brought them to Delhi on June 24.

The family is bitter with the authorities for not doing enough for them during the eight horrifying days of their life.

“The only messiahs for us were the social service organisations who had set up camps everywhere and provided us with food and water.”

Source: The Hindu, DT. June 27, 2013.