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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Jacob Jarvis

Nanda Devi: seven bodies recovered in search for eight missing climbers in the Himalayas

Seven bodies have been recovered during the search for eight missing climbers in the Himalayas, according to officials.

A group of eight mountaineers, including four Brits, went missing at the end of May during an expedition on Nanda Devi East.

An administrator of Uttarakhand state, Vijay Jogdande, said soldiers reached the bodies on Sunday but they had yet to be identified.

The bodies will be brought from where they were found, at an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, to the base camp.

Contact with the team was lost on May 26 following an avalanche.

Eight climbers went missing on Nanda Devi mountain in India (REUTERS)

Officials said they were all presumed dead.

Veteran British mountaineer Martin Moran led a team of four Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian on the expedition.

Five bodies believed to be from the missing team were spotted by air nearly two weeks ago.

Ground expeditions, by the Indian paramilitary forces and the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, were launched after helicopter missions failed to reach the area.

The search for the missing eighth mountaineer will continue, Mr Jogdande said.

While HS Chauhan, president of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, said authorities would decide on an air evacuation of the bodies depending on weather conditions and ground expeditions also are in the area for the task.

Mr Moran has been a mountain guide since 1985 and set up his company - Moran Mountain, based in Strathcarron in the Scottish Highlands - with his wife Joy.

Their grown-up children, Hazel and Alex, also work for the business.

In an earlier statement, the Moran family said: "We are deeply saddened by the tragic events unfolding in the Nanda Devi region of the Indian Himalayas."

Academic Richard Payne, from the University of York, is also believed to be among the missing climbers.

Additional reporting by agencies.

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