As many as 38 pilgrims have lost their lives due to health-related issues in the first 26 days of the ongoing Char Dham Yatra in Uttarakhand, officials said on Thursday.
The pilgrimage began on April 19 with the opening of the Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines. The Kedarnath and Badrinath temples opened their doors for devotees on April 22 and April 23 respectively.
Kedarnath reported the highest number of deaths with 21 pilgrims losing their lives, according to a State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) report. Badrinath recorded seven deaths, while Gangotri and Yamunotri reported five deaths each.
Officials said the deaths occurred due to different health-related issues, including altitude sickness and cardiac arrest.
By Wednesday evening, more than 11.81 lakh pilgrims had visited the four shrines. Kedarnath recorded the highest footfall with 4.91 lakh devotees, while more than 3.02 lakh visited Badrinath. Yamunotri and Gangotri recorded 1.94 lakh and 1.92 lakh visitors respectively.
Registrations for the Char Dham and Hemkund Sahib Yatra have crossed 33.96 lakh. Kedarnath recorded the highest 11.68 lakh registrations, followed by 10.19 lakh for Badrinath. Gangotri and Yamunotri recorded 5.90 lakh and 5.69 lakh registrations respectively. Hemkund Sahib recorded 0.48 lakh registrations. The state recorded 89,727 registrations for May 14 and 91,267 registrations for May 15.
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