Bad weather trapped a group of 22 trekkers last week in the Shastratal Mayali area of Garhwal Himalaya. Nine died of cold during the following 24 hours.
The trekkers set off early on June 3 for a high-altitude hike to Shastra Tal Lake, located at 4,600m between Bhagirathi Valley to the west and the Bhilangana Valley in the east. The weather reportedly worsened as the group started back to camp in the afternoon. Eventually, they became stranded.
“The snow intensified into a blizzard,” Krishna Byre Gowda, a minister of Karnataka state, where the group was from, told NDTV. “By 6 pm, two trekkers succumbed to bad weather. Snow and wind made movement impossible. Visibility dropped to nil. They huddled together for the night on the route. More succumbed [during] the night.”
“We saw people dying in front of us as we took shelter under a big rock,” one of the 13 survivors told The Indian Express. “It was only after the rescue that we came to know we were just one hour from the base camp.”
According to witnesses, four people died during the first night. Some group members, comprising 19 trekkers and three guides, managed to return to Lambtal village the following day and asked for help. Helicopters found the stranded hikers on Wednesday, but by then, five more had died from hypothermia.
Uttarakhand is a northern Indian state bordering Tibet and Nepal. It features some of the most stunning natural sights in the Indian Himalaya, such as the Nanda Devi massif, the Garhwal mountains — the birthplace of the Ganges River — and the Valley of Flowers National Park.
Uttarakhand on Google Maps.
