At Least 4 People Killed and 50 Rescued After Avalanche Buried Them Under Snow and Debris as Search Continues for Missing

50 people were initially rescued from the avalanche site and five others were still reportedly missing

At least four people are dead and several others are still missing after an avalanche occurred in India, according to news sources.

The Indian Army shared in a post on X on Friday, Feb. 28, that the army “launched rescue operations” after an avalanche struck a GREF Camp near Mana village in India’s northern Uttarakhand state — a mountainous location near the border of Tibet — trapping dozens of construction workers.

Fifty people were initially rescued after being buried under snow and debris, but four eventually succumbed to their injuries and died, authorities said, according to AFP, BBC and Dunya News. Five other construction workers are still missing, according to the outlets.

The Indian Army shared photos of the rescue on X, with army members trudging through thick snow to get to the avalanche site. Additional photos showed army members carrying injured workers who had been rescued on stretchers.

The Indian Army noted in an update that “despite harsh weather conditions and continuing snow” they were working to “extricate the injured,” with army doctors on site performing “critical life saving surgeries on the critically injured.”

They also noted that they were utilizing several tools at their disposal including “specialized recco radars, UAVs, quadcopters” and “avalanche rescue dogs” to locate survivors, in another X post. They noted that helicopters were also “operating continuously for staging forward essential equipment, resources and evacuation of the injured.”

They shared photos and videos of the injured on stretchers being moved from helicopters to medical tents to receive aid and of doctors stitching up wounds.

Uttarakhand state chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami shared in a statement on X that rescue teams were “continuously engaged in relief efforts” in the aftermath of the avalanche.

“The government is fully committed to provide all possible help to the affected people in this hour of crisis,” he said, according to a translated post on X. “The safety of the affected workers is our top priority. The administration, army and SDRF teams are continuously engaged in relief work.”

The minimum temperatures at the area where the avalanche struck had been around 10° Fahrenheit around the time of the incident, according to AFP. Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told BBC News that the area where the avalanche hit was a “migratory area” and that “no one lives there permanently.”

“Only labourers working on border roads stay there in the winter,” he told the outlet. “There’s also some army presence there. We’ve heard that it has been raining in the area for two days. The road workers were in a camp when the avalanche hit.”