Bodies found in search for missing Aussie climber
Indian air force pilots have spotted five bodies while searching Himalayan slopes for eight mountain climbers, including Sydney woman Ruth McCance.
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Indian air force pilots have spotted five bodies while searching Himalayan slopes for eight mountain climbers missing for a week, including Sydney woman Ruth McCance.
District Magistrate Doctor Vijay Kumar Jogdande says the bodies were found on Monday before a rescue operation in the northern state of Uttarakhand was suspended because of heavy snowfall and high winds.
Jogdande says an operation to find the other three mountaineers will resume on Tuesday. He says officials are consulting the Indian army on how to retrieve the bodies.
Ms McCance went missing along with British team leader Martin Moran, three men from the UK, two people from the US and an Indian liaison officer. The eight adventurers were part of a 12-member expedition attempting to summit a previously unclimbed route up Nanda Devi East.
The team trekked into the heart of the Nanda Devi sanctuary “with the ambition of summiting a virgin peak”, adventure company Moran Mountain said in a Facebook post.
The trip was expected to take about 24 days.
The company on May 22 wrote that the team had reached its second base camp at almost 5000 metres and “after a recce of the route, they will be making a summit attempt on an unclimbed peak at 6477m”.
The expedition’s British deputy leader, Mark Thomas, remained at the second base camp with three others, but was in radio contact with the group of eight that pushed higher.
When Mr Thomas didn’t hear anything after May 26 he went up to look for them and reportedly found a single unoccupied tent.
There was evidence of a large avalanche beyond that.
Indian Air Force helicopters made two reconnaissance missions on Sunday morning. The first was to take photographs of the area for mountaineers from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation to examine and give advice as to where the group could be.
A second helicopter picked up Mr Thomas from the base camp and returned to the site where the group is believed to have gone missing from, IMF spokesman Amid Chowdhury told AAP on Sunday.
“Today’s search has not hinted any results, we have not been able to spot any people, or any gear or any clothing,” he said.
“But they’ve been able to see footsteps going to a certain point and then beyond that is the track of the avalanche. So that’s the news, it’s not looking too good.” Mr Chowdhury said IMF would remain hopeful until there is absolutely clear evidence.
“Since we have been unable to see anything beyond the footsteps ending where the avalanche came down it’s not possible to make a definite, very certain conclusion that they were indeed in the avalanche, or they were not,” he said. It’s hoped another aerial reconnaissance will be able to be undertaken on Monday, depending on the weather.
Ms McCance’s husband, Trent Goldsack, said the last time he heard from her was a text message a week ago, which said, “OK at base camp.” “They basically went dark after they left Delhi, but that was expected. She’s done this stuff before,” Mr Goldsack told the Sydney Morning Herald. Ever since he had known her, this was something Ms McCance wanted to do, he said.
“She’s an amazing woman,” he told the Herald.
Websites linked to Ms McCance reveal an avid adventurer and sailor. The corporate coach, in a blog post from May 2016, revealed she gave up rock climbing at age 30 because she had “run out of mental and emotional reserves”. But at 47 she returned to the mountains in a bid to find “wild places that nourish my spirit for as long as my body will let me”.
A rescue team of up to 20 people — including members of the Indian-Tibetan border police and the state disaster management force — left Munsiyari on Saturday morning local time, Mr Chowdhury said.
But it will take them at least three days to reach the avalanche site
Mr Goldsack, her husband of 20 years said his wife had been both nervous and excited before she left for the trip.
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Websites linked to Ms McCance reveal an avid adventurer and sailor. The corporate coach, in a blog post, revealed she gave up rock climbing at age 30 because she had “run out of mental and emotional reserves”. “As much as I loved it and saw others climbing safely and well, I became overwhelmed by the risks involved, so I stopped,” she wrote in May 2016 alongside a picture of a rocky cliff.
“Each time I lead a climb successfully, rather than confirming my competence it became another lucky escape from what I believed was an inevitable accident.” But, at 47-years-old, she returned to the mountains in a bid to find “wild places that nourish my spirit for as long as my body will let me”. She recounted how a 23-day trek in India became “one of the most memorable” trips in her life and how her and a friend were “silenced” by the beauty of the mountains in France following her return to climbing.
“We always have hope but to be practical, we have to be prepared for bad news,” Indian Mountaineering Foundation spokesman Amid Chowdhury told AAP on Saturday.
The rescue team of up to 20 people — including members of the Indian-Tibetan border police and the state disaster management force — left Munsiyari on Saturday morning local time, Mr Chowdhury said.
Moran Mountain, in another Facebook post on Sunday, said the company is working with authorities and the British Association of Mountain Guides to gather information about the fate of their expedition.
“Out of respect for those involved and their families, we will be making no further comments at this time,” the post reads.
Originally published as Bodies found in search for missing Aussie climber
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