A screen grab from the video of mountaineers reaching the summit. ( Twitter/ITBP)The Indo-Tibetan-border police (ITBP) has released a video clip showing ‘last moments’ of the eight mountaineers killed on way to the Nanda Devi East Peak peak in Uttarakhand in May.
According to ITBP Deputy Inspector General (DIG) A P S Nimbadia, the 1.55-minute video was sourced from a memory card retrieved from near the bodies. “The video was sourced from a photo card that our boys recovered from near the bodies that lay in a bowl-like region of the mountain. This is the only evidence and last moments record of the journey of the eight climbers,” Nimbadia said.
Last visuals of the mountaineers’ team near the summit on unnamed peak near the #NandaDevi east. ITBP search team of mountaineers found the memory video device at 19K ft while they were searching the area where bodies were spotted. pic.twitter.com/0BI87MEA8Y
— ITBP (@ITBP_official) July 8, 2019
The video, shot by one of the mountaineers, shows all the eight climbers perilously hooked in a line with a rope just before the group was to summit the 7,434 metre high Nanda Devi East peak sometime in late May.
The climbers can be seen standing in a queue on a slippery snow-clad track that would have taken them to the peak.
However, the video ended with a minor thud, a sound that the ITBP officials said could be of an avalanche or snow storm that claimed their lives.
The Mountaineers went missing on May 25 and seven of the total eight bodies were brought down by the ITBP from about 19,000 feet to a lower base on July 3. A 15-member ITBP team of climbers clocked about 500 hours spanning more than 15 days in its mission.
The video was released at an event where the 15 members of the team were honoured by ITBP DG S S Deswal with mementos and a cash reward of Rs 20,000 each at the ITBP headquarters in Delhi.
The Mountaineers had left Munsyari on May 13 to scale the peak located in Pithoragarh district. The team included seven members from the UK, Australia, and the US, besides a liaison officer from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation.
The body of the team leader and noted British mountaineer Martin Moran has not been found till now.
