Officials in Jammu and Kashmir have temporarily suspended the Amarnath Yatra owing to poor weather brought on by the monsoon season, according to some media houses.
Pilgrims will not be permitted to travel beyond the Pahalgam base camp and toward the cave located far up in the Pir Panjal mountains.
According to earlier reports, more than 5,000 pilgrims have already visited the Amarnath cave shrine this year. On Tuesday, a new group of 6,351 pilgrims departed from Jammu to participate in the ongoing Amarnath Yatra.
After a hiatus of two years, the Amarnath Yatra had resumed this year. The COVID outbreak prevented the Yatra from happening in the years before. The cave is located 141 kilometres away from Srinagar at an elevation of 3,888 metres (12,756 feet).
The Lidder Valley cave is bordered by glaciers, snow-capped mountains, and is mostly always covered in snow, with the exception of a brief window during the summer when it is accessible to pilgrims.
There were between 12,000 and 30,000 pilgrims in 1989. The number of pilgrims peaked in 2011 at 6.3 lakh. In 2018, there were 2.85 lakh pilgrims. The yearly journey typically lasts anything from 20 to 60 days.
The shrine is an essential component of Hinduism. The Shiva Lingam is a stalagmite formation found inside a 40 m (130 ft) high cave at a height of 3,888 m on the Amarnath Mountain, which has a summit of 5,186 metres (17,014 ft) (12,756 ft).
The stalagmite is created when water drops that fall from the cave’s roof onto its floor freeze, causing the ice to rise vertically upward.