Guwahati: With the examination of the students are over for the academic session, it is tourist season in the state of Sikkim.
Tourists from across the country are flocking Sikkim to visit popular tourist destinations like the Nathu La Pass, Harbhajan Baba Mandir, Zuluk, Gurudongmar Lake and Valley of Flowers.
However, the entire state of Sikkim received unprecedented heavy rains, snow and hailstorms from March 15 to 17.
The tourists who were visiting these destinations got stranded as the roads were covered with snow and sleet, making the movement of cars and other tourist taxis impossible as the roads became very slippery and risky to drive on.
Tourists, who went with the intention of coming back to their hotels in Gangtok by night, did not carry any extra warm clothes to deal with the extreme cold weather conditions.
All the tourists were stranded due to a lack of warm proper warm clothing, food and shelter to stay for the night.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO), however, came to the rescue of these stranded tourists.
The personnel of the BRO went out to help the locals and the tourists by clearing the roads to allow all tourists to move back to their place of stay and more importantly, providing food and shelter to over 175 tourists.
Seeing the heavy rush of tourists who had no place to stay and no food to eat, the BRO picked up these stranded tourists from the road in their vehicles and brought them to their camps.
Here, they were provided with a place to rest for the night and food to eat. Medical attention was also provided to those in need of it.
Additional warm clothing and blankets were provided to them for the night in view of the extreme cold weather.
The BRO personnel toiled hard all day and night to ensure that the roads were opened within a short time of 6-8 hours.
The heavy-duty equipment of BRO worked in spite of heavy rainfall thus ensuring that the roads were open the next morning for all the 175 tourists and taxis to return to their respective places.