With two more bodies fished out on Thursday, so far the bodies of only 8 out of the 24 students who were washed away in the Beas river on Sunday, has been found.
Sixteen students and a tour operator are still missing. The latest victims have been identified as T Upendra and Gonoor Arvind Kumar,
police said.
More than 550 rescue workers from various agencies continued with a massive search operation for the fourth day to locate the missing students. The operation was hindered by rain
on Wednesday.
“I am satisfied with the rescue operation. They are doing their best,” Telangana Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy, who is camping here, said.
The tragedy occurred when a group of students, on a trip to Manali, were washed away on Sunday evening when water was released into the river without a warning from a nearby hydropower project.
Police have registered a case against the 126 MW larji hydropower project authorities for causing death by negligence and endangering life
of others.
National Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman M Shashidhar Reddy on Thursday reached the accident spot, to oversee the rescue and search operation being carried out by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).
A total of 20 divers of NDRF and 18 of the army have been involved in the search operation, focusing on the
15 km long downstream stretch of the river from the larji hydropower project dam to the Pandoh Dam. A special underwater camera to locate the bodies was deployed
on Wednesday.
Various agencies, including National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the army, the Sashastra Seema Bal, the ITBP and the state police, continued with the dawn-to-dusk operation.
Most of the eight bodies recovered so far were close to the accident site and they were either trapped under the rocks or sunk in the silt. The body of T Upendra, recovered on Thursday morning, was entangled in rocks near the accident spot.
In Shimla, Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said that State Government was making all out efforts to recover the bodies of students and one tour operator who washed away in Beas river near Thalot.
He said Himachal Pradesh being a hilly State and tough topography, State Government was coming up a comprehensive plan to avert such incidents. Besides putting up proper warning boards, the sensitive areas were being covered with barbed wire.
Singh said that search work had been speeded up with the recovery of two more bodies.
He said that local people had advised the students to not venture in the Beas river as water flow rise steeply with the outlet from the dam in the evening time due to the melting of glaciers, but the students ignored the warning and entered into the river
for photography.
The locals also warned when the water level started going up but the students failed to understand the gravity of
the situation.