At least ten people have died in the Indian Himalayas and eighteen are still missing, according to a new report published on Wednesday by the police, the day after an avalanche which carried away a group of mountaineers.
The group of climbers consisted of 34 apprentices from a local mountaineering institute, the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, seven instructors and a nurse.
The death of four of them was confirmed Tuesday after the avalanche near the summit of Mount Draupadi ka Danda-II, at an altitude of 4,880 meters in the state of Uttarakhand (North).
The search had been interrupted due to bad weather on Tuesday evening before resuming Wednesday morning.
"Rescue teams recovered 10 bodies," Uttarakhand state police said on Twitter on Wednesday.
Stuck in a crevasse
Police said 14 people were rescued, five of whom are being treated at a district hospital in nearby Uttarkashi.
Police footage showed some of the survivors arriving on foot in the town, escorted by officers.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami confirmed on Twitter that veteran mountaineer Savita Kanswal, a member of the instructor team, was among the dead.
Earlier this year, she summited Everest and nearby Mount Makulu in just sixteen days, a women's record.
Two Air Force helicopters were dispatched to help search the scene of the avalanche, disaster management officer Devendra Singh Patwal said.
National disaster agency spokesman Ridhim Aggarwal said the climbers were stuck in a crevasse after the avalanche.
The impact of climate change
In August, the body of a mountaineer was found two months after he fell into a crevasse while crossing a glacier in Himachal Pradesh, another northern Indian state.
And last week, the body of famous American mountaineer and skier Hilaree Nelson was found on the slopes of Manaslu, a Nepalese mountain.
She was reported missing while skiing down the eighth highest peak on the planet.
On the day of the accident, an avalanche had buried camps 3 and 4 installed on the 8,163 meter high mountain, killing the Nepalese mountaineer Anup Rai and injuring a dozen people.
Studies are lacking to quantify the impact of climate change on the Himalayas, but climbers have observed widening of crevasses, water in previously snow-capped areas and the proliferation of glacial lakes.
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