LUCKNOW, India -- Rescuers on Sunday were trying to find eight mostly foreign mountaineers who went missing while attempting to scale India's second-highest mountain, an official said.
The team, led by British climber Martin Moran, began its ascent May 13 to summit up a previously unclimbed peak on Nanda Devi East at 6,477 metres, according to Moran Mountain, Moran's Scotland-based company. The team comprises four Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian liaison officer.
Vijay Kumar Jogdande, a civil administrator in northern India's Uttarakhand state, said four other team members who stayed back at the second base camp were brought down Sunday.
He said the rescue operation, launched on Saturday, was called off Sunday due to bad weather. He said the search would resume on Monday, using tips provided by the four team members brought down from the base camp.
The mountaineers were supposed to return to the base camp on Friday, Jogdande said. "But when they failed to return, an alert was sounded and the rescue operation was launched," he said.
Jogdande said trekking has been called off in the region due to inclement weather and an avalanche. "Choppers are carrying out sorties to bring back people from the base camp," he said from Pithoragarh, a town 400 kilometres southwest of Lucknow city.
The route to the Nanda Devi peak begins from the Munsiyari area, about 130 kilometres from Pithoragarh. Mountaineers traverse on foot about 90 kilometres (55 miles) from Munsiyari to the Nanda Devi base camp.
Moran "is an accomplished mountaineer and had climbed Nanda Devi peak several times," Jogdande said.
Moran's company wrote on its Facebook page on Sunday that it was working with authorities and the British Association of Mountain Guides to "gather information regarding the Nanda Devi East expedition team."
"Out of respect for those involved and their families, we will be making no further comments at this time," reads the post.
