Four bodies recovered from Uttarakhand trek route; search on for four missing

Rescue teams on Wednesday recovered two more bodies from the Kedartal trekking route in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, bringing the total number of bodies recovered so far to four. Search operations are continuing for the remaining members of the trekking party who went missing after an avalanche and heavy snowfall hit the region on October 29.

The bodies were recovered by a joint team of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) during a search operation in the high-altitude region. They were subsequently airlifted to the Matli helipad in Uttarkashi, according to an SDRF statement issued on Wednesday.

The 12-member expedition, comprising seven trekkers, one guide, one cook and three porters, had set out from Gangotri on October 27 after obtaining permission from the Forest Department a day earlier. The group had been granted permission for a three-day trek and was expected to return by October 29.

On October 30, a day after the group was expected to return, authorities received information that the expedition had been caught in heavy snowfall and avalanches while returning from Kedartal. According to the information available from the Forest Department, avalanches had occurred at around 10-12 locations along the route.

Four members of the expedition — three porters and a cook — were rescued near Kachchi Dhang on October 31 and brought safely to Gangotri. The remaining eight, including the seven trekkers and the guide, could not be traced.

The rescue operation involved teams from the SDRF, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Uttarakhand Police, Forest Department, district administration and NIM. Initial ground and aerial searches failed to locate the missing people.

On November 2, rescue teams spotted tents, bags and other belongings near the Kedarkharak area, but could not find any of the missing members. On November 3, a joint SDRF-NIM team recovered two bodies, one male and one female, during a search near Kedar Kharak, at an altitude of approximately 4,000 metres.

The teams also continued searching the avalanche-affected stretches of the route. The search has been particularly challenging because of the difficult terrain and heavy accumulation of snow. Officials have said that rescue personnel are having to manually dig through the snow, with the deployment of snow-removal equipment proving difficult in the affected area.

Kedartal, a glacial lake situated at an altitude of approximately 4,720 metres, is accessed through an 18-km trekking route from Gangotri. The trail follows the Kedar Ganga river and passes through high-altitude meadows, birch forests and unstable moraine fields.

Unlike the more frequently visited Gomukh route, the Kedartal trail sees relatively fewer trekkers. Around 95 per cent of visitors undertaking treks in the Gangotri region take the Gomukh route, resulting in less frequent monitoring of the Kedartal trail.

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