Pithoragarh: Choppers of Indian Air Force (IAF) on Monday spotted the bodies of five out of eight mountaineers who went missing on their way to the Nanda Devi East peak in Uttarakhand. During the aerial search operation, the rescue team photographed ‘five dead bodies’ of climbers from India, UK, US and Australia went missing en-route to Himalayas in northern India. Of the eight mountaineers, two were Americans, four were British, one was Indian and one was Australian.

“Bodies of five mountaineers were sighted near an unscaled peak adjoining the Nanda Devi East peak during an air search by Air Force helicopters on Monday,” Pithoragarh District Magistrate VK Jogdande told news agency PTI.

“Apparently the mountaineers were perished in an avalanche while ascending an unscaled peak near the Nanda Devi East peak after they failed to scale the latter,” he said. The bodies were sighted after an air search was conducted over the peak on the basis of clues provided by four climbers from UK rescued during a sortie undertaken on Sunday.

An initial report has been sent to the Centre and further rescue operation will be conducted after the concern authorities gets instruction from the government. “We have an expert team from State Disaster Response Force, besides experts from Indian Mountaineering Foundation. In addition to these teams, we have stationed our search teams at Laspa and Bugdiyar camps close to the Nanda Devi base camp in Munsiyari," the District Magistrate said.


Led by well-known British mountaineer Martin Moran, the team went missing recently on way to the 7434-metre-high Nanda Devi East peak in Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district. A liaison officer of Indian Mountaineering Foundation in New Delhi was also part of the team.

They had left Munsiyari on May 13 to scale the peak but did not return to the base camp on the appointed date of May 25. At a height of 25,643 feet, Nanda Devi is the country’s second-highest mountain.