Eleven people on trek to Chitkul go missing

Eight trekkers and three cooks accompanying them on a trek to Chitkul in the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh have gone missing, officials said on Wednesday.The team of eleven people was on a trek to Chitkul via Harsil in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, District Disaster Management Officer Devendra Patwal said.

Eight trekkers and three cooks accompanying them on a trek to Chitkul in the neighbouring Himachal Pradesh have gone missing, officials said on Wednesday.

The team of eleven people was on a trek to Chitkul via Harsil in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, District Disaster Management Officer Devendra Patwal said. Comprising seven tourists from Kolkata and one from Delhi, the team had left Harsil for Chitkul on October 11 and was supposed to reach there on October 19. However, when it did not reach Chitkul on Tuesday, worried trek organisers informed the Uttarkashi District Disaster Management Office, Patwal said. An SDRF team is preparing to trace the missing trekkers by a helicopter and rescue them, he said. The team members have been identified as Anita Rawat (38) from Delhi, and Mithun Dari (31), Tanmay Tiwari (30), Vikash Makal (33) Saurav Ghosh (34) Saviayan Das (28), Richard Mandal (30) and Suken Manjhi (43), all from Kolkata. The cooking staff have been identified as Devendra (37), Gyan Chandra (33) and Upendra (32), all from Purola in Uttarkashi.