DEHRADUN, June 24 � For 36-year-old Tehri resident Vijender Singh Negi, hanging from the Kedarnath temple bell while standing over floating corpses in neck-deep water for nine straight hours proved a life saviour, reports PTI.
While the house of God sheltered him from nature�s fury, the agonising nine hours spent between the divine and the dead still haunts him, according to his relative.
Negi�s brother-in-law Ganga Singh Bhandari, a Delhi-based travel operator, said seeing him return alive was nothing short of a miracle and tells how the �dead saved Negi�s life�.
�He stood hanging from the temple bell from 7 am to 4 pm, the day after the disaster struck. He stood on corpses to balance himself. His clothes had been torn to pieces by the water�s fury but he somehow withstood the force hoping to come out alive,� Bhandari told PTI.
Bhandari�s hotel located right beside the Kedarnath Temple got washed away in the torrent in front of Negi�s eyes, even as he jumped out of the building.
�My brother-in-law (Negi) jumped off from the roof of our three-storeyed hotel into the water, before finding shelter in the temple. He saw hundreds of corpses floating inside,� Bhandari said.
�He has big ulcers on his hands. Not only the nine hours proved excruciating, he battled to stable himself hanging from the temple bell as the water�s force tore his clothes apart rendering him in a state of nature,� he said.