Uttarakhand: Two rescue teams dispatched to find stranded IIT students
On Tuesday, reports had surfaced about 45 IIT-Roorkee students having gone missing in Himachal Pradesh as rains battered the state. Now, it's been reported that another 19 students of the same institute had got stranded while trekking near Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. However, they are on their way back now, and two State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams have been sent to intercept them.
The trekking team had got stranded due to bad weather
The 24-man trekking team comprises 19 IIT-Roorkee students, along with staffers and porters. The team had started their trek from Ghuttu in the Tehri district to Gaurikund in the Rudraprayag district on September 19, and was supposed to reach their destination on September 25. However, they got stranded due to bad weather, got delayed by two days, and are backtracking now.
What IIT-Roorkee had to say
"The students have been spotted and we have been told (by state government officials) that they are safe and are trekking back to Ghuttu. We will, hopefully, be able to talk to them tomorrow (on Thursday)," Sonika Srivastava from IIT-Roorkee's media cell told IE.
45 missing IIT students were rescued by IAF choppers
Earlier, the other 45 students, who had reportedly gone missing, were rescued by Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters. Bad weather and up to four feet of snowfall in various parts of the Lahaul-Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh had reportedly led to hundreds of people getting stranded on blocked roads. The IIT-students were among them. The majority of those stranded have been rescued by IAF.
