Record-Setter Mountaineer Savita Kanswal Dies In Uttrakhand Avalanche

A 26-years-old instructor from NIM, Savita Kanswal who climbed the world’s fifth-highest peak Mt. Makalu and Mt. Everest in just 16 days passed away among those other mountaineers who were killed when an avalanche struck a group of trainee mountaineers and instructors in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi on Tuesday.

Kanswal climbed Mount Everest (8848 m) on the 16th day of the challenging journey on the 12th of May, following this she also climbed Mt. Makalu on May 28th. Kanswal who belongs to Uttarkashi’s Lonthru was hit by the avalanche near the Dokran Bamak glacier along with 41 mountaineer trainee members when the troop was just returning from the high latitude navigation from Mount Draupadi ka Danda 2 peak (5670 m).

In the unfortunate tragedy of uttarkashi, the death of Instructor Kanswal with 4 other people was confirmed so far by the additional district magistrate Tirath Pal Singh. Further, in a statement, he stated that the rescue operations resumed on Wednesday morning and they were able to bring 14 people from the NIM base camp safely. “Army and Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters are engaged in the rescue and relief operations, too,” He said.

Those who were rescued so far have been identified as Deep Singh (Gujarat), Rohit Bhatt, Suraj Singh, Kanchan Singh, Ankit Singh, Ankur Sharma, Rajesh Rana, Babita, Rekha Uttarakhand), Sunil, Aakash (Mumbai), Anil Kumar (Rajasthan), Manish Agarwal (Delhi), Pradeep Kumar (West Bengal).