Seven more bodies were recovered on Thursday taking the death toll to 16, officials said two days after a team of climbers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering were trapped by an avalanche in Uttarkashi’s Draupadi ka Danda-2 peak. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said search operations are underway and he is monitoring the rescue operations.
The Nehru Institute Of Mountaineering, a well-known mountaineering institute under the Defence Ministry, in a statement said 12 bodies of trainee climbers were recovered on Thursday and a total of 29 persons (2 instructors and 27 trainees) are stranded. The climbers were trapped at a height of 17,000 feet on Tuesday when the team was returning after summiting.
“Sixteen bodies recovered till now. We are trying to bring the bodies down from high altitude,” Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela told ANI.
Earlier in the day, the NIM had announced the recovery of five more bodies, taking the number of bodies retrieved to nine after four (2 instructors and 2 trainees) were recovered on the day of the avalanche.
The search and rescue efforts are in progress but the heliborne operation was suspended due to bad weather. “Search and rescue operation is in progress at the disaster site. Heliborne operation have been stopped due to bad weather. Evacuation of dead bodies will be resumed on October 7 morning depending on the weather conditions,” the latest rescue bulletin released by the NIM said.
Meanwhile, a 14-member team from High Altitude Warfare School based in Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir joined the search and rescue operations on Thursday. The State Emergency Operation Centre in Dehradun said the team, which specialises in high-altitude rescue operations, will join the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and mountaineers from NIM in their efforts to find the missing climbers.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the rescue work is underway as teams have come from Kashmir to join the search operations. “NDRF, SDRF and local administration is carrying out rescue operations. Sixteen bodies have been recovered. I am continuously monitoring the search and rescue work,” he said.
The Uttarakhand Police on Wednesday had said 14 injured mountaineers were airlifted to the ITBP camp at Matli out of which five were admitted to district hospital Uttarkashi and nine who had sustained minor injuries were sent back to the NIM.
(With inputs from PTI, ANI)
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