At least 10 trainee mountaineers died Tuesday after an avalanche struck the Himalayas in northern India, media reports said, rescuers searched for 11 missing people.
Uttarakhand Police Chief Ashok Kumar said a group of 29 people were hit by an avalanche on a peak in the Gangotri range of the Garwal Himalayas on Tuesday morning. He said rescuers pulled eight survivors out of the snow and took them to a local hospital for treatment.
The Press Trust of India news agency reported that 10 people had died.
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All of the missing people had been trained in mountaineering schools but were far from the avalanche site, Kumar said.
Uttarakhand’s most elected official, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said the National Disaster Response Force and the Indian Army had deployed teams to assist in the rescue effort. The Indian Air Force has deployed two helicopters to search for missing persons.
“This is the first time in the history of Indian mountaineering that so many trainees have died in an avalanche,” said Amit Chowdhury, an official with the International Federation of Mountaineering and Mountaineering and a former Indian Air Force officer. .
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said he was “deeply distressed” over the many lives lost in the avalanche.
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“My condolences to the families who lost loved ones,” Singh tweeted.
Avalanches are common in the mountainous areas of Uttarakhand. Last year, more than 200 people died in the state when glaciers broke and flash floods occurred.