Two foreign climbers have been rescued after being stranded for three days on a mountain in India’s Himalayan north.
Fay Manners from the UK and Michelle Dvorak from the US were ascending a rocky section of the Chaukhamba-3 peak in India’s Uttarakhand state when they got stranded, said Sandeep Tiwari, a senior administrative officer of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli District.
The climbers were rescued on Sunday, he said.
Photo courtesy of Indian Air Force on X via AP
The climbers were first reported stranded on Thursday last week when a rockfall severed their rope, sending their bags — along with crucial supplies such as food, tent and climbing gear — into a gorge. The climbers also lost most of their communication equipment, but managed to send out an emergency message the same day.
“We were pulling up my bag and she [Dvorak] had her bag on her, and the rockfall came, cut the rope with the other bag, and it just went down the entire mountain,” Manners told reporters on Sunday.
The rescue operation took 80 hours to complete and involved the Indian Air Force and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority.
Rajkumar Negi, a spokesperson for India’s disaster management agency, said that two Indian Air Force helicopters dispatched on Friday last week to help with the search were unable to locate the climbers, but on Saturday, a French mountaineering team, which was also attempting to climb the Chaukhamba-3 peak, located the stranded climbers and relayed their coordinates to the authorities.
The Indian Air Force in a statement on social media said that it airlifted the climbers on Sunday “from 17,400 feet [5,304m], showcasing remarkable coordination in extreme conditions.”
Chaukhamba-3 is a mountain peak in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
CYBERSCAM: Anne, an interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Brad Pitt and lost US$855,259 A French woman who revealed on TV how she had lost her life savings to scammers posing as Brad Pitt has faced a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading the interview to be withdrawn on Tuesday. The woman, named as Anne, told the Seven to Eight program on the TF1 channel how she had believed she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood star, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer 830,000 euros (US$855,259). The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as artificial intelligence image-creating technology to send Anne selfies and other messages
RSS