India sends team to find missing climbers

NEW DELHI: A second team of mountaineers set off on Thursday to look for eight climbers, seven of them foreigners, feared killed on the country’s second-highest mountain, officials said.

The 10-strong group of highly trained climbers from the paramilitary Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) set off from Pithoragarh for the base camp of Nanda Devi East peak in the Himalayas.

From there they will try to reach the site where on June 3 a helicopter spotted five bodies and climbing equipment in the snow, at a height of about 5,000 metres. On Monday a separate team from the Indian Mountaineering Federation set off on a different route. The four Britons, two Americans, one Indian and one Australian have not been heard from since May 26, a day before heavy snow fell and massive avalanches started.