The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) on Wednesday morning launched a first-of-its-kind heliborne operation to retrieve bodies of at least eight mountaineers who are believed to have been killed in an avalanche near an unscaled mountain adjoining Nanda Devi East.
However, the team which was carrying out the operation code-named 'Dare Devils' could not airdrop four highly-trained mountaineers at the site due to technical and logistical difficulties, prompting experts to mull a foot expedition to the site, which may take a week to launch.
The team took off from Pithoragarh at 4:50 AM with four expert mountaineers and five Air Force personnel. However, the three attempts made earlier to retrieve the bodies from the 7,434-metre peak had to be aborted.
Eight out of 12 mountaineers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, were reported missing after they left Munsiyari on May 13 to scale the peak. They were to return to base camp on May 25 as scheduled while four of them were rescued on Sunday. The Air Force had spotted five bodies on Monday.
ITBP spokesperson Vivek Pandey said, "This is a high-risk mission as the only way to retrieve the bodies is through a heliborne operation. This is probably the first-of-its-kind highly risky retrieval operations in the Indian mountains inside glaciers. Mountaineers of ITBP involved in the operations are highly experienced mountaineers. They have climbed many peaks, including the Mount Everest."
According to the status report on the retrieval rescue operations, officials said, the team attempted three sorties to the avalanche site at an elevation of 5,000 metres but they faced difficulties with respect to geographic terrain and flight operations because of which it was “not feasible” to hover in air and land near the site where bodies can be seen.
The technical difficulties faced by the team include “high altitude (around 5,200 metres) of the avalanche site, one-way approach to the site, aircraft limitation due to bowl like geography, proneness to further avalanches and turbulent wind conditions”.