Bengaluru: The rescue teams comprising army, airforce, State Disaster Response Force and various government agencies and organisations of Uttarakhand recovered four bodies of trekkers on Thursday after 5 bodies of trekkers, all belonging to Bengaluru city, were exhumed on Wednesday from Sahsratal in Uttarakhand.
The trekkers from Bengaluru were trapped in bad weather on their return from a trek in the region. The trekkers were caught in bad weather owing to intensified snowfall in Sahsratal in Uttarakhand on June 2.
Minister for Revenue Krishna Byre Gowda on Thursday reached Uttarakhand to ferry back the bodies of the trekkers and rescued trekkers to Bengaluru. He held discussion with the officials concerned of Uttarakhand government on the rescue operations and to make arrangements to ferry trekkers bodies.
The names of deceased trekkers include Sindhu Wakelam, Asha Sudhakar, Sujata Mungurwadi, Vinayak Mungurwadi and Chitra Praneeth were exhumed on Wednesday and the bodies were airlifted to Uttarkashi. Continuing their search for the missing trekkers, the rescue teams on Thursday morning recovered the bodies of K.P. Padmanabha, K. Venkatesh Prasad, Anita Rangappa and Padmini Hegde.
The Minister said the arrangements will be made to ferry the bodies to Bengaluru through a charter flight.
The rescued trekkers include S. Sudhakar, M.K. Vinay, Vivek Sridhar, A. Naveen and Ritika Jindal. The trekkers were airlifted to Dehradun from Uttarkashi on Thursday morning. Among others trekkers rescued on Wednesday include Soumya Canale, Smruthi Dolas, Sheena Lakshmi, S. Shiva Jyoti, Anil Jamtige Arunachal Bhatt, Bharat Bommana Gouder, Madhu Kiran Reddy and B.S. Jaiprakash.
After an interaction with the rescued trekkers, the Minister for Revenue Krishna Byre Gowda shared on his ‘X’ account that a group of 20 trekkers and guides went from Lambtal camp site to Sahsratal on June 3. The trekkers were returning to the camp and were about 1.5 km away to reach the camp, snowfall intensified at about 2 pm. Continuing, he said, the snowfall turned into a blizzard by 4 pm and at around 6 pm, two trekkers succumbed to bad weather.
Rescued trekkers told the Minister that “Snow and wind made movement impossible and visibility in the region dropped to nil.”
The rescued trekkers narrated their ordeal to the Minister and informed the Minister that four other trekkers succumbed to the bad weather the same night while other trekkers huddled together. The following day that is on June 4, the trekkers said a guide set off to reach a place where mobile connectivity can be established and he intimated about the incident.
The members of Karnataka Mountaineering Association and Indian Mountaineering Federation alerted the agencies to begin the rescue operations.
