Bodies of 5 mountaineers, part of team that went missing in Nanda Devi, spotted: IAF
Pithoragarh: Indian Air Force helicopters Monday spotted the bodies of five of the eight mountaineers who went missing en route to the Nanda Devi East peak in Uttarakhand, the IAF said.
The eight-member team consisting of climbers from the UK, the US and Australia went missing on the way to the Nanda Devi East peak.
Bodies of five mountaineers were sighted near an unscaled peak adjoining Nanda Devi East during an air search by IAF helicopters on Monday, Pithoragarh District Magistrate V K Jogdande said.
Apparently, the mountaineers were perished in an avalanche while ascending an unscaled peak near the Nanda Devi East peak after they failed to scale the latter, he said.
The IAF also tweeted about spotting the bodies.
"Today, #IAF crew spotted five bodies in the Himalayas during a #SearchAndRescue operation for missing mountaineers. A team of eight climbers had gone missing near the Nanda Devi peak over a week ago," it said.
The bodies were sighted after an air search was conducted over the peak on the basis of clues provided by four climbers from the UK who were rescued during a sortie undertaken on Sunday.
"We are sending a report to the Centre. Further rescue operation will be conducted after we get instructions," Jogdande said.
"We have an expert team from State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), besides experts from Indian Mountaineering Foundation. In addition to these teams, we have stationed our search teams at Laspa and Bugdiyar camps close to the Nanda Devi base camp in Munsiyari," he said.
Sub-divisional magistrate of Munsiyari, K N Goswami, said, "It is now ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) and SDRF and Air Force teams that will conduct the search operation with help of expert mountaineers and local villagers."
Led by well-known British mountaineer Martin Moran, the team went missing on way to the 7434-metre-high Nanda Devi East peak in Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district.
A liaison officer of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation in New Delhi was also part of the team. The team had left Munsiyari on May 13 to scale the peak but did not return to the base camp on the appointed date of May 25.
Besides Moran, the team members were John McLaren, Richard Payne, Rupert Havel (all from the UK), Ruth Macrain (Australia), Anthony Sudekum, Rachel Bimmel (both from the US) and liaison officer Chetan Pandey, Jogdande said.
Moran had scaled the peak twice in the past, he said. The route to the peak begins from Munsiyari, about 132 km from the district headquarters.
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No 'bacterial infection' found in bodies of 4 Mumbai family members who died after eating watermelon
Mumbai (PTI): The initial report submitted by the microbiology department of a Mumbai-based state-run hospital has said no "bacterial infection" was detected in the bodies of four family members, who died after consuming watermelon recently, officials said on Wednesday.
The Dokadia family, residents of Ghari Mohalla on Ismail Kurte Road, had hosted a get-together of relatives on the night of April 25. At around 1 am (on April 26), hours after the guests had left, Abdullah Dokadia (40), his wife Nasreen (35), and daughters Ayesha (16) and Zaineb (13) ate pieces of a watermelon.
They suffered severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea in the early hours of April 26 and were rushed to a local hospital before being referred to the government-run J J Hospital where all four died during treatment.
After the incident, Mumbai police, forensic experts and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials visited the house and had collected samples of every food item that constituted the family's last meal, including 'chicken pulav', watermelon, water, and other foodstuffs, and sent them to the Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis.
After the post-mortem of the deceased, their viscera was preserved for chemical analysis.
As the probe is underway, the microbiology department of the state-run J J Hospital has submitted its initial report to the police.
"As per the report, no bacterial infection has been detected so far in the bodies of the victims. No bacteria was found in their blood," the official said.
The exact cause of the death will be known once the forensic science lab submits its report, he said.
"The report will also clarify whether any food items consumed by the family members during the day contained anything poisonous," the official said.
