Shillong, April 5: Rescue efforts at the location of the avalanche that killed seven persons in Sikkim resumed on Wednesday. The operation was halted due to heavy snowfall on Tuesday evening.
The police and other disaster management authorities are taking no risk to find anyone missing during the tragedy. However there is no reported missing person.
As the avalanche struck, at least six vehicles carrying close to 20 tourists were buried in the snow. 23 people, including six tourists, were rescued alive from a deep valley and seven dead were pulled from the snow.
The visitors who had been rescued belong to Nepal, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, and Delhi and are receiving medical attention. Among those, at least eight were serious.
Sikkim chief minister Prem Singh Tamang, who was in Gujarat, returned to the state capital Gangtok and met with some of the injured tourists at a hospital.
On the busy Jawaharlal Nehru Road, which runs from Gangtok to the Nathu La pass at the India-China border, the avalanche struck near the 14th Mile point.
Tourists were taking pictures next to a stream when the avalanche struck. Before the army, disaster management personnel, and police joined the rescue effort, local villagers and store owners also helped the victims.
