Nine Bengaluru trekkers dead, 13 rescued from Uttarakhand's Garhwal mountains

Bengaluru: Karnataka Government with support from the Uttarakhand government has successfully rescued 13 of the 22 trekkers from Bengaluru who were stranded while on a trek through the Sahastra Tal- Mayali stretch in the Garhwal mountain ranges of the Himalayas.

Nine of the trekkers were dead before the rescue team could reach them. 

The extreme weather conditions had made it impossible for the trekkers to reach the base camp and the rescue team was soon summoned.

However, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda confirmed to DH that nine trekkers were dead before the rescue team could reach them. “All of the surviving trekkers have been rescued and are stable. I have personally met many of them. However, so far, we have only been able to retrieve the bodies of the five deceased,” Gowda told DH. 

Owing to the extreme weather conditions, the search operations, which were started as early as 5 am on Wednesday, had to be halted by afternoon. “Weather conditions are challenging and hence we had to halt the search operations. We will restart the operations to retrieve the bodies of the four others as soon as the weather conditions permit,” Gowda added. 

He also said that efforts were on to get the survivors back to Bengaluru and to transport the bodies of the deceased to the city.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that the government was trying its best to complete the search operations. He spoke to the survivors and reassured them. “I pray for the peace of the departed souls. The search team is working hard. However, weather conditions are not favourable and are posing a challenge to expedite the rescue operations. I have asked the Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda to personally oversee the operations,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah posted on X.

According to sources, the trekkers belonged to the age group of 36 to 72 years. However, the oldest of the team, aged 72 could not sustain the weather conditions and was found dead. 

The 13 survivors have been identified as Bharat Bommanagoudar, Vivek Sridhar, Soumya Kanale, Jayaprakash BS, S Sudhakar, Rittika Jindal, Naveen A, S Shiva Jyothi, Vinay MK, Sheena Lakshmi, Madhu Kiran Reddy, Smruti Dolas, and Anil Jammatige Arunachala Bhatta.

The nine deceased have been identified as Asha Sudhakar, Padmanabha Kundapur Krishnamurthy, Sindhu Vakekalam, Venkatesha Prasad K N, Αnita Rangappa, Padmini Hegde, Chitra Praneeth, Vinayak Mungurwadi, and Sujatha Mungurwadi.

50 officials worked on rescue operation  

More than 50 officials from various agencies were on the ground working to rescue the survivors. According to a statement by the Karnataka Revenue Department, ten officials from the Forest Department, two revenue sub-inspectors, two home guards and a few local villagers were pressed into duty on Wednesday morning and they were later joined by six State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) jawans.

Apart from them, the SDRF High Himalayan Rescue team, five teams from the Nehru Mountaineering Institute, and NDRF teams were also a part of the rescue operations.