Shimla, Oct 21
As may as five trekkers have been recovered dead at Lamkhaga pass, while two were found alive, one of whom is critically ill, state authorities. Whereas four are still missing out of the 11 trekkers stranded on Uttrakhand Himachal Pradesh trekking route. Deputy commissioner Kinnaur Abid Husain Sadik informed that Army Helicopter traced five dead bodies out of the 11 missing trekkers at Lamkhaga passes this afternoon. Two were found alive as they got struck in heavy snowfall on the way to Chitkul village of Kinnaur district of Himachal.
Eight trekkers and three cook left for Chhitkul from Harsil of Uttarakhand on Oct 11 who were scheduled to arrive here on Oct 19.
Deputy commissioner said that a Rescue team of ITBP had left for Lamkhaga pass at 0430hrs today. He said the relief teams found a tourist and a guide trapped in the snow today, out of which the tourist has been safely transported to Uttarkashi through a chopper, while the guide was handed over to the army personnel there. He will be airlifted to Uttarkashi tomorrow, he added.
He said that during the relief efforts rescue teams have found 5 bodies of tourists from different places, which will also be collected at one place and sent to Uttarkashi by helicopter tomorrow.
Adding that after 1400hrs today, due to bad weather, the chopper flight could not take place and due to which relief and rescue work was stopped. He informed that now Army helicopter and ITBP would move to rescue at 0630 am on Friday and relief and rescue operations would be started by the jawans again.
SDRF identified the stranded trekkers as 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 Anita Rawat (38yrs) hails to Delhi.
Devendra (37), Gyan Chandra (33) and Upendra (32), belonged to Purola area of Uttarkashi and engaged for cooking by the trekkers also missing.
Both the states witnessed heavy rain and unseasonal snowfall with thunderstorm as even 15 people are already killed in Uttrakhand due to flash flood. District Emergency Operation Centre Kinnaur said that heavy snowfall was reported between Oct 17 to 18 on the high reaches of Kinnaur.
He said that still four other tourists are missing and two tourists found have told that they were coming towards Himachal.
