Massive landslides on Badrinath Highway amid snowfall at several places in Uttarakhand on Sunday forced the Char Dham pilgrims to halt their journey for several hours.

Thousands of pilgrims were stranded on the roads without food and drinking water.

The landslides happened on Sunday morning near Bajpul Chada Pinaula and Tayapul areas of Chamoli district. Over 500 vehicles on both sides of the road were stuck and waiting till Sunday evening for the rescue teams of the government to clear it. There is a possibility that the travellers wouldn’t be able to resume their journey anytime soon as the operation to remove the boulders would start on Monday morning.

Ashish Tripathi, a yatri, told reporters: “We had kept biscuits and water but that was exhausted in the early afternoon. There is nothing to eat or drink now.”

Ajendra Ajay, president of the Badrinath-Kedarnath Mandir Samiti, said: “We are trying to mainstream everything and will manage it soon. There was advice to the pilgrims to keep a watch on the changing weather and start their journey when it is clear. But it didn’t happen.”

The system of registration collapsed in Gaurikund and Sonprayag in Rudraprayag district where yatris from across the country had arrived in the morning. Queues of Kedarnath pilgrims at the registration counters of the two places on Sunday afternoon stretched over 1km as the local administration refused to let them move forward without enrolment.

Earlier, chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had said that the devotees would be able to go to their destinations without any registration. But just before the yatra to Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri started on April 22, the idea was dropped without the issuance of a public notice.

“The registration was started to provide tokens to them so that they could smoothly worship in the temples one by one. However, the government stopped registration two days ago when the number of pilgrims suddenly started multiplying,” Ajay said.