“On the first day alone, we managed to rescue around 32 workers,” an official said. By Saturday morning, 14 more were rescued, while four bodies were recovered, the official added.Lt. Col. Manish Shrivastava, PRO (Defence) in Dehradun, said, “One more body has been recovered by the Army from the snow during the ongoing search operation. The body is being transported to the Mana post.”Army doctors said 46 workers have been brought to the military hospital in Joshimath, while one with a spinal chord injury was airlifted to AIIMS, Rishikesh. Three of them are critical, Lt Col DS Maldhya said.Meanwhile, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited the Uttarakhand State Emergency Operation Centre here to take an update on the rescue operation.Speaking to reporters, he said, “The ground penetrating radar (GPR) system is being sent to the avalanche site and help of modern tools like thermal imaging camera and victim locating camera are being taken to trace the labourers still missing. The weather may turn bad on Monday again. The effort is to trace the missing on Sunday itself.”In a post on X, Dhami said he has instructed officials to expedite the ongoing operation.”The Indian Army, ITBP, NDRF, SDRF and other relief and rescue teams are working on a war footing at the site of the incident,” he said.Chamoli District Magistrate Sandeep Tiwari said that an Mi-17 helicopter is waiting in Dehradun to fly the GPR system to the avalanche site, he said.State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams with a sniffer dogs have arrived at the avalanche site to help in the search and rescue efforts, he said.Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta, GOC-in C, Central Command, and Lt Gen D G Mishra, GOC, Uttar Bharat, are at the avalanche site to monitor the rescue operations.Six helicopters—three of the Indian Army Aviation Corps, two of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and a civil chopper hired by the Army—have been engaged in the operation.Located three kilometres from Badrinath, Mana is the last village on the India-Tibet border at a height of 3,200 metres.Army officials said the rescue operation on Saturday was mostly carried out by the Army and IAF helicopters as the approach road was blocked by snow at several points, making vehicular movement nearly impossible.The priority is to bring the rescued workers to the Army hospital in Jyotirmath and look for the four missing workers, they said.If weather permits, specialised RECCO radars, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), quadcopters and avalanche rescue dogs will be pressed into service to trace the missing workers, Lt Gen.Sengupta said.”Everything depends on the weather,” he added.More than 200 personnel from the disaster management authority, ITBP, BRO, NDRF, SDRF, IAF, district administration, health department and fire brigade are engaged in the rescue operations, he said.
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