In the month of June 2013. Kedarnath, one of india's holiest shrines was decimated in one of the worst natural disaster to hit the nation in recent times. Hundreds of pilgrims, travellers and locals perished. Entire families were lost. Thousands of men, women and children went missing. Loss of life was grave and indian airforce and indian army did everything possible to reduce the pain of people trapped in this himalayan tsunami.
It was 16th of june 2013 and airforce stations under Western commands where on high alert on receiving the information about flash flood in Uttrakhand. IAF bases took no time and on receiving the orders from high command, blue print of this rescue operation was made and the operation Rahat was launched on 17th june. First phase of operation rahat aimed to airlifting of approximately 25000 of people.
During first phase of the operation 18500 people where evacuated, 400000 kg of relief material were dropped. Air Commodore Rajesh Isser the appointed head of this operation made all his possible efforts in providing perfect leadership to this massive rescue operation. Numbers of helicopters including newly deployed Mi-17 V5 was rushing to and fro towards the valley. ITBP personals were providing all the possible land support and many temporary helipads were made by them. Indian army men helped people reach the helipads. Uptill 20th june, 20 aircraft which included 8 Mi-17 helicopters, 10 ALH, 1 AN-32 transport aircraft and 1 HS-748 transport aircraft was deployed. These numbers went on increasing as the days passed by.
1st phase of the operation was a major rescue operation following which 2nd phase of the operation was launched on 5th of june 2013. The main aim of 2nd phase of this operation was to rebuild Uttrakhand and clear the debris of this himalayan tsunami. On 25th june a helicopter crash caused a major setback to this second phase of operation, a Mi-17 V5 helicopter carrying 20 people including 6 ITBP personal 9 NDRF personal crashed in north of Gaurikund killing everyone onboard. However IAF continued to operate from Dharasu and Pithoragarh, 7 Mi-17 V5s, 2 ALH helicopters were kept in operation.
A total of 43 aircrafts were used in the operation rahat these aircraft included IL-76, HS-748, An32, C130j,Mi-26 heavy transport aircraft, Mi17, Hal Dhruv and Cheetah single engined Helicopters. With all the difficulties and hardships IAF did this operation successfully and made it one of the biggest civilian rescue operation ever to be carried out in the world.
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