Himachal tragedy: Two more bodies pulled out of Beas river

The search operation to find the missing engineering students from Hyderabad, who were swept away by strong currents of the Beas river on Sunday, entered into fourth day on Thursday.

Zee Media Bureau

Shimla: The search operation to find the missing engineering students from Hyderabad, who were swept away by strong currents of the Beas river on Sunday, entered into fourth day on Thursday.

The rescuers today recovered two more bodies. One of the deceased was identified as T Upendra by his parents, said RS Negi, SP, Mandi.

So far, bodies of eight of the 24 students, who were swept away, have been recovered. A tour operator, who was with the students, is also missing.
A case of negligence has already been registered against authorities of the Larji Hydropower project in connection with the incident.

As many as 24 engineering students from Hyderabad, who were part of a group of students on a tour of Himachal Pradesh, and a tour guide were washed away in the Beas on Sunday when water was released into the river from the Larji hydroelectric power project.

SP Negi said that a case under sections 336 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 304-A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC has been registered against the authorities of Larji project.

The FIR against the project authorities was registered by A Aditya, a teacher accompanying the students.
Rescuers, meanwhile, continue to search for the 17 missing persons including 16 students.

The melting of snow in the higher hills has meant that the discharge of water in the Beas has increased and more than 550 rescue workers from various agencies are engaged in the massive search operations under the supervision of the National Disaster Response Force.

“Intensive search operation are on along 20 km stretch of river Beas from Thalot (the accident spot) to Pandoh Dam but the river is full of boulders and silt level is high. The bodies are either trapped under boulders or sunk in the silt and we are searching every boulder,” Jaideep Singh, commanding officer NDRF, said yesterday.

The search teams are expecting the swollen bodies to surface by Thursday but chances of survival of the missing persons are nil.

Four bodies recovered on Monday were flown to Hyderabad and cremated on Tuesday, while the fifth body of Devashish Bose was flown to Hyderabad on Tuesday evening.

Officials said that Beas being a snowfed river, the water level increases as the day advances and reaches its peak at night.

However, the discharge of water is minimum during the morning hours and search operations are comparatively easy.

(With PTI inputs)

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