Bengaluru: The state will send a dedicated helicopter to help stranded pilgrims of Karnataka in Uttarakhand. The chopper that has been taken on rent took off from Hyderabad airport on Sunday and is expected to reach Dehradun on Monday morning.
The medical teams sent from Karnataka were not able to reach devastated areas and help pilgrims from the state. “We decided to use the helicopter service to ferry the medical team and food supplies for the people from the state,” said DIG Hemanth Nimbalkar, special officer at the state helpdesk in Dehra Dun.
“It is a twin-engine aircraft and can accommodate six people. We are holding talks with the Uttarakhand government and Army officials to send the chopper to affected areas with the medical team,” he said.
Karnataka brings 81 pilgrims to safety, 14 still missing
The state will send a dedicated helicopter to help stranded pilgrims of Karnataka in Uttarakhand. The chopper that has been taken on rent took off from Hyderabad airport on Sunday and is expected to reach Dehradun on Monday morning.
The medical teams sent from Karnataka were not able to reach devastated areas and help pilgrims from the state. “We decided to use the helicopter service to ferry the medical team and food supplies for the people from the state,” said DIG Hemanth Nimbalkar, special officer at the state helpdesk in Dehra Dun.
“It is a twin-engine aircraft and can accommodate six people. We are holding talks with the Uttarakhand government and Army officials to send the chopper to affected areas with the medical team,” he said. 
medical team,“ he said. Even as state authorities managed to bring 81 pilgrims from Karnataka to safety on Sunday, fourteen pilgrims have been declared missing in the catastrophe that hit Uttarakhand last week.
While 13 pilgrims from Maddur continued to be out of touch, Ravi Kumar, a cook with the Nirmal Travels, has also gone missing. The 31-year-old cook was last seen by his travel operators when ventured into the forest to escape to safety on June 18th.
“We thought Ravi was safe, but he did not contact us or his family in Bengaluru. We have submitted photograph of Ravi along with his ID numbers,” said S. Shenoy, a tour operator from Mangalore.
DIG Hemanth Nimbalkar, special officer for the State Helpdesk at Dehradun, said that so far, there have been no casualties from Karnataka. “But 13 people from Maddur and one person from Bengaluru continue to be out of touch.
Many stranded people from the state contacted the helpdesk few days ago, but we have not heard from them yet. We are hoping that they have been stranded in safe zones,” Nimbalkar said.
Meanwhile, the state help-desk is sharing photographs of missing persons with the Uttarakhand authorities although efforts to track missing pilgrims have been unsuccessful so far. For the last week, none of the 14 missing persons have made any contacts with their family members or attempted to reach the help desk.
“We are beginning to fear the worst as we have been unable to trace our families. Only four of us out of 17 have taken shelter in the state help-desk in Dehradun. We are waiting to discover the whereabouts of the others,” said one of the survivors from Maddur.
The 57 passengers from Karnataka, whose buses washed away in the flash floods reached Haridwar on Sunday afternoon. The missing man, Ravi, was the cook. “We are happy to have reached Haridwar, but few of us will stay here to trace Ravi Kumar, who was last seen at Gowrigoan on the night of June 18,” Shenoy added.