Bengaluru, 5 June

A trekking expedition in Uttarakhand turned deadly on Wednesday after ninemembers of a 22-member team from Karnataka died due to harsh weather conditions. The group, organised by Himalayan View Trekking Agency, had started on a 35-kilometer trek in Uttarkashi on 29 May.

While 13 trekkers were rescued, four others remain missing.

The started their trek on Tuesday in the high altitude area of Shastratal Mayali in Uttarakhand. After reaching the destination, they tried to return to the camp again. However, the weather turned completely bad at 2 pm due to a blizzard and they were stranded.

The deceased are Sindhu Vakekalam 44; Asha Sudhakar 71; Sujatha Mungurwadi 52; Vinayak Mungurwadi 55, and Chitra Praneeth 48. The missing trekkers are Bengaluru’s Venkatesh Prasad 53; Padmanadha Kundpur Krishnamurthy 50; Anita Rangappa, 60, and Padmini Hedge.

The rescued are Jayaprakash BS, 61; Bharat Bommanagoudar, 53; Anil Jammatige Arunachala Bhatta 52; Madhu Kiran Reddy 52; Sheena Lakshmi 47; Soumya Kanale 37; Vinayaka MK 47; Sudhakar S, 64; Shiva Jyothi, 45; Vivek Sridhar, 38; Naveen A, 39, and Rittika Gindal, all from Bengaluru North. Smruti Prakash Dolas, 40, a resident of Pune was also rescued.

Indian Air Force deployed helicopters to assist in the rescue, but operations were halted due to worsening weather conditions and are expected to resume tomorrow morning.

Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda visited Dehradun to monitor the rescue efforts and met with the eight rescued trekkers. "Efforts are on to trace four more," stated Gowda. "Due to bad weather conditions the operations were stopped and will begin again tomorrow morning."
He later met the eight rescued trekkers at the Bijapur Guest House in Dehradun.

Chief Minister Siddaramiah also expressed his concern, stating, "Some more trekkers are yet to be rescued. Adverse weather is severely hampering rescue operations and our government is trying its best to bring everyone to safety. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a weather warning for several districts in Uttarakhand, including Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarkashi, Tehri, and Dehradun. Salar News