Rescue efforts enter third day at India avalanche site

DEHRADUN: Indian rescuers hurried in sub-zero temperatures Sunday to dig out four missing workers presumed buried by an avalanche in a remote border area, with snowfall increasing the risk of more sliding snow.

More than 50 workers were submerged by snow and debris after the avalanche hit a construction camp on Friday near the border with Tibet in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, according to officials.

Relief teams have managed to rescue 50 workers, but among them four later died of their injuries.

State authorities late Saturday revised down the number of people missing after the avalanche from five to four after one worker, previously believed to be buried, was found to have safely made his way home.

Officials did not provide details or say whether the man had been buried in the avalanche on Friday.

The state disaster relief team said that all steel containers that the workers were staying in at the time of the avalanche had been found but there were no people inside.

Rescuers have employed military helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs in their efforts, and soldiers were set to use ground-penetrating radar to help locate the four workers believed to be missing.

State chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had directed officials to move other workers from high-risk areas to safer locations due to continuous snowfall, the Times of India newspaper reported Sunday.

At an altitude of more than 3,200 metres (10,500 feet), minimum temperatures at the area where the avalanche hit were down to minus 12 degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit).

Avalanches and landslides are common in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, especially during the winter season.

Four dead from India avalanche, five still missing: army

Scientists have said climate change is making weather events more severe, while the increased pace of development in the fragile Himalayan regions has also heightened fears about the fallout from deforestation and construction.

In 2021, nearly 100 people died in Uttarakhand after a huge glacier chunk fell into a river, triggering flash floods.

And devastating monsoon floods and landslides in 2013 killed 6,000 people and led to calls for a review of development projects in the state.