Nanda Devi: Body of Indian mountaineer identified, rest to be identified soon

Bodies of seven out of eight missing mountaineers, who were on a mission to climb Nanda Devi peak over a month ago, were brought to Pithoragarh on Wednesday, said VK Jogdande, DM Pithoragarh.

"The bodies of the seven out of the eight mountaineers who were lost in the Nanda Devi East region were located by the ITBP team on June 23. The bodies were brought to Pithoragarh earlier today using two Cheetah, one ALH and one Mi-17 helicopter of the Indian Air Force (IAF)," Jogdande told here.

He added the body of the Indian mountaineer was among the ones recovered by ITBP and added the identification of other members would be handed over to the respective embassies after postmortem.

"We have identified the body of the Indian mountaineer, Chetan Pandey, with the help of his family. The bodies also include a female mountaineer who was a part of the group. The identification of the other bodies is not possible currently. We will shift these bodies to Haldw where their postmortem and embalming will take place. Following this, we will ask the concerned embassies to take the bodies in their custody and inform the relatives of the mountaineers," he said.

Talking about the mission to locate the eighth and the final member of the group he added, "One more mountaineer from the group is still missing. The search and rescue operation for him was stopped by us due to bad weather, there is also a forecast of heavy rains in the area due to which the decision to suspend the mission was taken. We will ask ITBP to resume operations once the weather clears and connect him with his family as soon as possible," Jogdande said.

The bodies have been handed over to District Administration by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police officials, who have called off "Operation Daredevils'.

The climbers were killed by an avalanche a month ago near Nanda Devi. The eighth member of the team, however, could not be located due to bad weather. The bodies were found at an altitude of approximately 21,000 feet.

A 10-member team of ITBP dug out the seven bodies, including that of a woman climber, from under the snow. The team had launched 'Operation Daredevil' for the missing group of mountaineers included -- 4 British, 2 Americans, and 1 each from India and Australia.

( With inputs from ANI )