Due to the heavy rainfall at Gujarat’s highest peak a boulder broke loose and blocked the stairway leading to the top of Mount Girnar. This boulder is an obstructing movement of pilgrims because it came to rest in the middle of the stairway. The boulder will be removed soon and the stairway has since been repaired, said by the Forest officers.
Mount Girnar is part of Girnar Wildlife Sanctuary in Junagadh territorial forest division.
The mountain was lashed by extremely heavy rainfall on September 12 and 13, which forest officers termed unprecedented, leading the boulder to slide from its position and roll down onto the stairway around 1,100 steps from Bhavnath Taleti, the foothill of the mountain.
“The rainfall was unprecedented and it caused the boulder to slide. Though Mount Girnar is a rock formation, heavy rains can trigger such events,” Sanjay Berwal, deputy conservator of forests (DCF) of Junagadh territorial forest division said on Monday. “We shall remove the boulder from the stairway tomorrow.”
Berwal said that the steps in the airway damaged by the recent rainfall had been repaired.
“We have not heard of landslides on Mount Girnar in our lifetime so this is a new phenomenon,” said Pradip Khimani, a member of Girnar Yatradham Vikas Mandal — an organisation of prominent citizens of Junagadh working for the development of tourism at Mount Girnar. He said that due to the heavy rain, the flow of pilgrims had been low recently.