Footage of a group of climbers who died in the Indian Himalayas in May has been found by a search team and shows them climbing through the snow on a remote peak.
The eight climbers were reported missing in May while trying to scale Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest mountain. The group consisted of four Britons, two Americans, one Australian and an Indian. Seven of the eight bodies were recovered in June.
On Monday, an Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) search team in the region announced they had found a “memory video device”, which was later described by the ITBP’s deputy inspector general as a GoPro, showing them hiking.
The short clip, which runs for less than two minutes, has been published by the ITBP on Twitter and depicts the group moving slowly through the snow on an unnamed peak near Nanda Devi east. Wind, but no voices, can be heard in the audio of the footage.
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 footage was found at 5,800 metres (19,000ft) while the ITBP mountaineers were searching the area where the bodies were found.
“The GoPro was proved to be like the black box of an aircraft giving an insight into the last few moments of the climbers,” ITBP deputy inspector general APS Nambadia said at a press briefing according to the BBC.
“It was mesmerising for us to see the footage.”
The group vanished in the Nanda Devi region on 26 May following an avalanche. They were being led by British mountain guide Martin Moran and were attempting to reach the top of an unclimbed peak in a remote area.
Moran, originally from Tyneside, 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.
In an earlier statement, his family said: “We are deeply saddened by the tragic events unfolding in the Nanda Devi region of the Indian Himalayas.
“As a family, we share the same emotions that all next of kin are experiencing in not knowing the whereabouts or wellbeing of those closest to us.”
The group also included Ruth McCance from Sydney, whose husband, Trent Goldsack, said climbing was “part of her”.
“She had been planning on doing something like this ever since I have known her, more than 20 years,” he said.
