250 Indian pilgrims in Nepal evacuated

Over 250 Indians were evacuated safely from Hilsa on Tuesday as rescue work intensified to bring back over 1,500 pilgrims stranded in Nepal’s mountainous region due to heavy rain while returning from the Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage in Tibet.

Leela Narayanan Mandredath (56) of Kerala and Satya Laxmi of Andhra Pradesh died due to high altitude sickness in Simikot and heart attack in Tibet respectively, the Indian Embassy said. Their bodies were brought to Kathmandu and Nepalganj respectively.

“Over 250 pilgrims have been evacuated from Hilsa to Simikot,” an Indian Embassy official said.

New Delhi is in touch with Kathmandu to explore the possibility of deploying military helicopters for evacuation. “We have requested the Government of Nepal for army helicopters to evacuate stranded Indians,” Sushma Swaraj, External Affairs Minister, tweeted.

The stranded include nearly 290 from Karnataka.

5 Amarnath pilgrims killed
Five people were killed in a landslide on the Baltal route of the Amarnath Yatra in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday night, PTI reports from Srinagar.

Police said four men and a woman were killed, while three others were injured.