Badasu, Kedar Valley:
Every summer for a month, 18-year-old Manish Rambhon from Badasu village ferried pilgrims between Rambada and Kedarnath and paid his college fees with the money he made. However, his life took a tragic turn on June 16 when calamity struck Uttarakhand.
The gushing waters swept away his ponies and he barely managed to run uphill towards the jungle area of Gurud Chatti.
Fighting starvation, biting cold and rain, Manish finally made his way home 72 hours later and narrated his tragic experience. His eight-year-old cousin, who was with him, did not make it.
"I took shelter under a large rock. For three days I went without food or water. I didn't think I would survive. My 8-year-old cousin was with me. I couldn't save him. I saw many of my friends die," Manish Rambhon says.
Kedar Singh, a shopowner from Badasu, lost his sons Sumit and Amit in the tragedy.
"They used to help me out at the shop. When the water started rising, they ran uphill towards the jungle but couldn't survive the cold and collapsed," he says holding up a photo of the boys standing in front of the Kedarnath temple.
Many of those who went missing in the deluge were school and college boys who went up to
Kedarnath every year. Most were aged between 8-24 years.
Sudama's 12-year-old son Amit's first maiden trip to Kedarnath ended in a tragedy. Amit's was helping out at a shop his uncle owned when tragedy struck.
After a 24-hour search, Sudama found his son's body among the bodies lying in Kedarnath. However, with the focus on rescuing survivors from the area, he could not bring the body back for a proper cremation.
"I saw hundreds lying dead. I recognised my son only by what he was wearing that day," Sudama said.
The floods in Kedarnath have shattered the lives of 23 families in Badasu- almost half the village has lost a young generation.