Uttarakhand avalanche: Bodies of four more missing workers recovered, rescue operation ends

Dehradun: The bodies of the last four of the trapped labourers were pulled out from the site of the avalanche-hit Border Roads Organisation (BRO) camp in Chamoli on Sunday, taking the death toll to eight as authorities ended the nearly 60-hour rescue operation.

Army doctors said 46 workers who were rescued on Saturday have been brought to the military hospital in Jyotirmath. Two of them have been referred to AIIMS, Rishikesh. Three of the workers are in critical condition, Lt Col DS Maldhya said.

The body of the last missing worker has also been retrieved. The recovery marks the culmination of the Mana Village Rescue operation, Defence Public Relations Officer (PRO) Lt Col Manish Shrivastava said.

"Out of the 54 labourers who went missing after the avalanche, 46 were rescued alive and eight found dead," Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said.

Four bodies were retrieved on Saturday and as many on Sunday.

The avalanche hit the BRO camp between Mana and Badrinath on Friday, burying the 54 workers inside eight containers and a shed. Earlier, it was believed that the total number of trapped labourers was 55 but one of them was on unauthorised leave and had reached home safely.

More than 200 personnel from the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, NDRF, SDRF, IAF, district administration, health department and fire brigade were engaged in the rescue operation. Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres.

The last missing worker found dead was 43-year-old Arvind Kumar Singh from the Clement Town area in Dehradun. The others whose bodies were pulled out on Sunday were identified as Anil Kumar (21) from Rudrapur in Uttarakhand's Udham Singh Nagar district, Ashok (28) from Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh and Harmesh from Una in Himachal Pradesh, the officials said.

The bodies have been brought to Jyotirmath by helicopter where the post-mortem was being done at the Community Health Centre.

Helicopters, sniffer dogs and thermal imaging technology were used to expedite the rescue operation, officials said.

The rescue operation lasted nearly 60 hours amid inclement weather for the first two days. However, the weather was largely clear on Sunday.

Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta, GOC-in C, Central Command, and Lt Gen D G Mishra, GOC, Uttar Bharat, remained at the avalanche site to monitor the rescue operations.

Earlier on Sunday, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited the Uttarakhand State Emergency Operation Centre here to take an update on the rescue operation.

"The weather may turn bad on Monday again. The effort is to trace the missing on Sunday itself," the chief minister said.

"The Indian Army, ITBP, NDRF, SDRF and other relief and rescue teams are working on a war footing at the site of the incident," he said on X.

Six helicopters -- three of the Indian Army Aviation Corps, two of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and a civil chopper hired by the Army were engaged in the operation, the defence PRO said.