Of the six climbers who were were reported missing on Friday, 1 October, after getting caught in an avalanche near the peak of Mount Trishul in Uttarakhand's Bageshwar district, bodies of four have now been recovered, reported news agency ANI.
The Indian Navy expressed their condolences to the families of Lt Cdr Rajnikant Yadav, Lt Cdr Yogesh Tiwari, Lt Cdr Anant Kukreti and Hariom MCPO II.
Quoting Colonel Amit Bisht, Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), the agency reported that the search for two more members is currently underway.
A team of 20 mountaineers from navy the had left for an expedition to the 7,120 m tall Mount Trishul on 3 September. As many as five mountaineers of the Navy and one porter were said to have gone missing.
Ten members of the group had met with the snow accident at 5 am on Friday, as was reported by the adventure wing of the navy at 11 am, news agency PTI reported.
A team from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), led by its principal Colonel Amit Bisht, has initiated a search operation in the avalanche-hit area.
Rescue operations are also being undertaken by a team of the Indian Army, Air Force, and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF).
Colonel Bisht, speaking to The Times of India, indicated that members of the ground team, air force officers, and Garhwal scouts, are undertaking a search mission at the site of the accident.
Amid this, several reports have emerged that a teenage girl, Kamya Karthikeyan, who was a part of the group has gone missing.
However, The Quint spoke to a source close to the family who said that the news was not true. Kamya was not a part of the Navy group but was climbing the mountain with her father, Karthikeyan Sundaram, who is also a naval commander.
While the family has not been able to establish contact with the two of them, the source said this could be attributed to the fact that the two haven't come back to the base camp or got connectivity.
We were further told that the family doesn’t want to speculate at this moment and was waiting for verified information from the search teams.
Thirteen-year-old Kamya Karthikeyan is a celebrated mountain climber.
Karthikeyan had, in February last year, become the youngest person to scale the 6,962-metre-high Mount Aconcagua in the Andes Mountains in South America. Her skilful feat had been commended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during Mann ki Baat.
(Update: The article has been updated to incorporate inputs from a source close to the family clarifying that Kamya has not been reported missing, but the family hasn't been able to establish contact with her yet.)
(With inputs from PTI and Times of India)
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