Even as search for missing students in Beas River continued for the third consecutive day on Thursday and some more bodies were recovered, the families of the missing students have lost all the hopes of finding any survivor.
With the recovery of three more bodies since Wednesday, total eight of the 24 bodies have been found so far.
On Thursday, the search teams found the bodies of G Arvinda Kumar of Hyderabad and T Updendra from Khamm-am. After post-mortem the bodies were airlifted to Delhi and brought to Hyderabad by flight.
Earlier the body of another student Shaikh Shabbir Ali was recovered on Wednesday and brought to Hyderabad this morning. His funeral in Gulmohar Park area was attended by the city Mayor Majid Hussain and others.
Meanwhile, the divers from Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Army also joined the search operation on Thursday to further intensify the operation. Apart from using the boat and Unmanned aerial vehicle, the search teams were also walking along the banks of the river Beas to look for the missing students.
The discharge of water from one of the gates of larji dam was stopped on Thursday. The gate was opened after Wednesday’s rains, which brought more water in to the reservoir.
Rajiv Trivedi, a senior IPS officer and ace diver and swimmer has also left for Himachal Pradesh to help in the search operations.
The disturbing video footage of how the group of students standing on the boulders not far from the bank were caught in the surging and rising water was watched by the million in Andhra Pradesh including the family members and friends of the victims.
The video, released by amarujala.com and shown by almost every single channels and website, was shot by a videographer accompanying a wedding party at a nearby hillock. From his vantage point the videographer could see the water released from the dam surging towards the tourists and level of river rising dramatically. The people standing with the photographer also tried to raise an alarm by sounding whistles and other means but could not do anything to alert the hapless students.