Search for the eighth mountaineer believed to have died while attempting to scale Nanda Devi East peak is ongoing in Pithoragarh district. Due to the current weather conditions of the district, the chopper of Indian Air Force is unable to carry the seven bodies of the recovered mountaineers from high altitude site. The bodies will be brought down to the Nanda Devi East base camp by the personnel of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and from there the bodies will be lifted by the IAF helicopter to Pithoragarh.
Pithoragarh District Magistrate Vijay Kumar Jogdande said, “ITBP has located seven of the eight bodies at the elevation of 5,800 metres. They were recovered on Sunday and will be brought down to Nanda Devi East base camp, which will take another two to three days. From there an Mi-17 helicopter will carry them to Pithoragarh, after which the bodies will be identified and the process of their post-mortem will be initiated. The bodies will then be handed over to the authorities concerned, who will contact their guardians.”
Official spokesman of ITBP, Vivek Pandey said, “Our teams tried to carry the search for the eighth body on Monday but due to heavy snowfall they could not cover the area. The team will be again carrying out the search on Tuesday. Twenty of our personnel are at base camp II which is about 1.5 kilometres far from the mishap site. The team is efficient and can carry the bodies to the Nanda Devi East base camp. It will take time because they will try to locate and retrieve the body of the eighth mountaineer also.”
Speaking on behalf of Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) Colonel HS Chauhan said, “Last we got information from them was that they are still at higher camp I, which is established at an elevation of about 5000 metres. Because of fresh snowfall they were not able to move on Monday.”
It is pertinent to mention here that despite deteriorating weather condition on the mountain, ITBP successfully retrieved seven out of eight bodies of the mountaineers who had gone missing on May 26. The bodies include that of a woman and the Indian climber.