Uttarakhand avalanche: Four more bodies recovered, toll rises to 8; 60-hour rescue operation ends

The bodies of the last four of the trapped labourers were pulled out of the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60-hour rescue operation.

Army doctors said 46 workers who were rescued on Saturday have been brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath. Two of them have been referred to AIIMS, Rishikesh. Three of the workers are in critical condition, Lt Col DS Maldhya said.

The body of the last missing worker has also been retrieved. The recovery marks the culmination of the Mana Village Rescue operation, Defence Public Relations Officer (PRO) Lt Col Manish Shrivastava said.

“Out of the 54 labourers who went missing after the avalanche, 46 were rescued alive and eight found dead,” Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said.

Helicopters, sniffer dogs and thermal imaging technology were being used to expedite the rescue operation due to apprehensions about possible inclement weather on Monday, officials said.

Three bodies of the missing labourers were found on Sunday, district administration officials said in Gopeshwar. With this, the number of workers who lost their lives in the Mana avalanche has mounted to seven. One person is still missing for whom the search is in progress, they said.

The bodies have been brought to Jyotirmath by helicopter where the post-mortem was being done at the Community Health Centre.

The deceased include Anil Kumar (21) from Rudrapur in Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district, Ashok (28) from Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh and Harmesh from Una in Himachal Pradesh, the officials said.

The lone worker who remains missing is 43-year-old Arvind from the Clement Town area in Dehradun.

The avalanche hit the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp between Mana and Badrinath on Friday, burying 54 workers inside eight containers and a shed. Earlier, it was believed that the total number of avalanche-hit labourers was 55 but one of them was on unauthorised leave and had reached home safely.

A total of eight helicopters – five from the Army, two from the Indian Air Force and a civilian helicopter hired by the Army -- have evacuated all rescued persons from Mana Post to military hospital at Joshimath, the headquarters of the Army’s Ibex Brigade.

A drone-based system that can detect ‘buried objects’ has reach Joshimath on board a IAF helicopter. Apart from this, a UAV, five quadcopters and three mini UAV’s have been deployed.

The labourers were part of Border Roads Organisation team tasked to an infrastructure project. Mana is the last village on the India side and is close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

A stretch of 20 km of road between Joshimath and Mana is under snow.

Indian Army doctors on-site have performed life-saving surgeries for those in dire need, while helicopter operations from the Joshimath helipad are in full swing. — with PTI