Bodies of five tourists who were trekking from Uttarkashi to Chitkul found; two rescued

Bhanu P Lohumi
Tribune News Service
Shimla, October 21

Bodies of five out of 11 trekkers who had gone missing on their way from Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand to Chitkul in Himachal were on Thursday traced at different places near Lamkhaga pass in Kinnaur district by Army and ITBP teams which rescued a tourist and a guide while four persons are still missing.

The trekkers had left for Chitkul on October 11 and were scheduled to reach Chitkul on October 19 but they did not reach Chitkul and lost contact. Heavy snow was witnessed in Kinnaur on October 17 and 18.

The Army and ITBP teams started rescue operations from Nitthal Tach by removing 105 cm of snow while other teams surveyed the area via helicopter.

The rescue teams airlifted the tourists to Uttarkashi while the guide was staying with the Army personnel.

The bodies are being brought to one place for identification and would be airlifted to Uttarkashi tomorrow, said Deputy Commissioner Kinnaur Abid Hussain Sadiq adding that the rescue operations were suspended due to bad weather conditions as the chopper couldn’t operate after 2 pm.

The rescue operations will start tomorrow morning. The rescued tourists informed that the four missing tourists were also on their way to Himachal. The eleven trekkers, included seven tourists from Kolkata and one from Delhi and three cooks.

Eleven missing trekkers included seven tourists from Kolkata namely Mithun Dari (31), Tanmay Tiwari (30), Vikash Makal (33), Saurav Ghosh (34), Saviayan Das (28), Richard Mandal (30), and Suken Manjhi (43), all from Kolkata and one and Anita Rawat (38) from Delhi besides three cooks/guides Devendra (37), Gyan Chandra (33) and Upendra (32), hailing from Purola area of Uttarkashi.