DEHRADUN: The roar came first. Deep, guttural — like a dozen thunderstorms colliding over the Himalayas. Then, the whiteout.
Vipan Kumar had just finished another long shift operating heavy machinery in the frozen heights of Chamoli. He was resting inside a metal container, the kind workers use as makeshift housing at remote sites. He barely had time to react before the world around him turned to ice. “I heard a loud roar, like thunder,” he said, his voice shaking over the phone. “Before I could react, everything went dark.”
The avalanche slammed into the site with terrifying force, burying him and his co-workers under a thick layer of snow. In the deafening silence that followed, Vipan lay trapped, unable to move, his body frozen by a mix of ice and fear. “I thought it was the end. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t see anything.”
Then, instinct kicked in. He gasped for air, twisted his body, and began pushing against the crushing weight above him. It took what felt like hours, but eventually, he forced himself free and staggered toward a nearby Army base — alone, disoriented, but alive.
Not far from where Vipan had been buried, dozens of workers were sleeping inside similar containers. When the avalanche hit, the force sent the heavy structures tumbling downhill like discarded tin cans. Some landed violently on a snow-covered road, collapsing under the force, their thin metal walls splitting apart like paper.
“The containers rolled down, and two fell on the snow-bound road,” another survivor said. “We somehow crawled out and walked barefoot; some of us weren’t even wearing proper clothes.” The cold bit at their skin, but survival left no time for pain.
Inside those containers were civil engineers, mechanics, cooks, and machine operators—more than just labourers. They had been sent to clear snow from the Mana Pass road, a crucial lifeline for Indian forces stationed along the icy border. Their job was to keep the route open. But now, they were the ones who needed saving.
Some workers managed to escape with minor injuries, but others weren’t as lucky. The project manager, a man from Bihar, had been thrown from his container in the chaos. He hit the ground hard and needed 29 stitches to close the wounds.
But another worker never made it back. “The first person who fell from that container lives in Dehradun,” an official at the military hospital said. “Efforts are on to find him as he is still missing.”
By Saturday, the survivors had reached Jyotirmath, where Army doctors examined the injured. Vipan, still aching from severe back pain, sat in a quiet corner of the hospital, his phone in his hands.
He had one call to make—but he couldn’t do it. Back home in Chamba, his wife, parents, and elder brother were waiting. They didn’t yet know that Vipan had survived something that should have killed him. “I last spoke to my wife at 5 am on Friday, minutes before the avalanche struck,” he said. “Today, my family called me again, but…I couldn’t tell them.” His voice cracked under the weight of the moment.
The avalanche had buried the road, but for some, it had also buried the past—the belief that this kind of disaster happens to “other people”. For Vipan and the men who walked barefoot through the snow that morning, survival was now a story to tell.
