Beas tragedy: 2 more bodies fished out

 Two more bodies of the engineering students from Hyderabad were retrieved on Thursday from the Beas river here as the search operations gained momentum with 15 Indian Navy divers helping out.

 The victims were identified as T Upendra and Gomoor Arvind Kumar by their parents, Superintendent of Police Mandi R S Negi said.

The bodies were trapped in rocks and rescue teams had a tough time retrieving them, he said.

With this, the number of bodies recovered during the last four days has risen to eight, while efforts continue to trace the remaining 16 students and a co-tour leader.The bodies of five boys and three girls have been recovered so far and 13 boys and three girls are missing.

Meanwhile, 15 divers of the Navy joined the rescue team and an unmanned aerial vehicle has also been deployed to accelerate the search operations.

With the melting of snow in the hills, the discharge of water in the river has increased and over 550 rescue workers from various agencies under the supervision of National Disaster Response Force are already engaged in the massive search operations.

National Disaster Management Authority Vice-Chairman M Shashidhar Reddy, who reached the accident site to oversee the rescue operations, said that two more bodies were recovered from the river on Thursday.

“Our divers are facing the problem of poor visibility, the river bed is full of silt and huge boulders and rocks are acting as impediments and it is only through ‘feel’ that the bodies are being recognised,” Reddy said.

“The underwater camera did not have much success (due to muddy water) and now we are going to deploy a UAE (unmanned aerial vehicle) that will continuously recce the entire area of operation,” he added.