Two more bodies of trekkers from the group that went missing on the Kedartal route in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district were recovered on Wednesday, officials said, taking the death toll in the trekking tragedy to four. The two were part of a group of eight — seven trekkers and a local guide — who went missing six days ago after an avalanche struck the high-altitude route.

Source: The Hindu

The latest recovery is a new development in a search that has been running since the avalanche struck near Kedar Kharak on October 29, as the party was returning from Kedartal, a glacial lake at about 4,720 metres. On Tuesday, after five days of searching, a joint team recovered the first two bodies — a woman and a man buried in the avalanche — near Kedar Kharak. District Disaster Management Officer Shardul Gusain said on Tuesday that those two bodies were yet to be identified. With Wednesday's recovery, four of the eight missing have now been found dead and four remain unaccounted for.

Source: PTI via Swadesi News

Search in snow, glaciers and broken terrain

The district administration's search and rescue operation remained under way on Wednesday. District Magistrate Prashant Arya visited the Smart Control Room to review the latest updates, and directed officials to closely monitor every development, maintain seamless coordination with the rescue teams on the ground and ensure effective use of all available resources, officials said. Essential supplies for the operation are being sent from the Matli helipad.

Source: ANI via DevDiscourse

The joint teams working in the area comprise the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), and the Disaster Management, Forest, Revenue and Police departments. The SDRF launched intensive ground and aerial search operations on Sunday, and on the instructions of SDRF Commandant Arpan Yaduvanshi a special mountaineering team was deployed to locate the missing. Rescue officials have said the operation is being hampered by rugged mountainous terrain, glaciers, snowfall and adverse weather.

The missing group comprised five male trekkers from West Bengal, two female trekkers from Uttar Pradesh and a local guide from Uttarkashi. West Bengal leader Suvendu Adhikari had on Monday named five young trekkers from Bankura among the missing in a post on X, and said the state government was in constant touch with the Uttarakhand government and its SDRF.

The expedition had set out from Gangotri on October 27 and was due to complete the trek by October 29. Four members of the support team managed to return to Gangotri on October 30 and informed the authorities after they could not reconnect with the others. The Uttarkashi Forest Division has suspended permits for trekking routes at altitudes of 4,000 metres and above until weather conditions improve.

What happens next: the search for the four who remain missing is expected to continue as weather permits, and the identification process for the recovered bodies is awaited. Officials had not announced identifications of the recovered trekkers in the latest reports.