Char Dham shrines, hilly areas of Uttarakhand receive fresh snowfall

With a fresh spell of snowfall, the Char Dham shrines and hilly areas of Uttarakhand were covered in a white blanket of snow on Tuesday.

The Badrinath shrine in Chamoli district witnessed snowfall for almost the entire day on Tuesday with over one feet of snow being accumulated by evening.

The India Meteorological Department had issued an orange alert predicting heavy snowfall in districts like Chamoli, Uttarkashi and Pithoragarh.

In Uttarkashi district, snowfall started late on Monday night and continued till Tuesday in the high altitude areas, affecting normal life in areas like Harsil Valley, Gith Patti, Mori block, among other areas.

In the district, eight villages of Harsil Valley including Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines were completely covered with snow by Tuesday evening.

Devendra Patwal, disaster management officer, Uttarkashi district, said that all departments, especially the road and transport department are on alert in view of the snowfall and information about problems due to snowfall is being sought.

The MeT department on Tuesday predicted that moderate to dense fog is likely to occur in some parts of the plains especially in Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar from January 6-9. It further predicted that light to moderate rainfall or snowfall is likely to occur at many places in the state on Wednesday. Snowfall is likely to occur at places with a height of 1600 metres and above in Uttarkashi, Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Pithoragarh districts, and at places with a height of 2000 metres and above in remaining districts of Uttarakhand.