LUCKNOW, India: Seven bodies believed to be from a missing team of international climbers were retrieved by helicopters from a notoriously dangerous Himalayan mountain in northern India on Wednesday, officials said.
Indian air force helicopters brought the bodies to Pithoragarh town in northern India’s Uttarakhand state, said Vijay Jogdande, a local civil administrator. He said the bodies were still unidentified because the faces were damaged and no identifying papers were found on them.
Veteran British mountaineer Martin Moran was leading three other Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian on an expedition to climb Nanda Devi East. Moran’s Scotland-based company said contact with the team was lost on May 26 following an avalanche.
An eighth body hasn’t been found and authorities have abandoned the search.
“We tried our best but unfortunately we had to abandon the mission due to the limitation of terrain, snow hazards and inclement weather as monsoon has set in,” said Vivek Kumar Pandey, a spokesman for the Indo-Tibetan Border Force.
He said authorities are taking DNA samples from the bodies, and after identification will hand them over to their countries through diplomatic channels.
They were first spotted on June 3 from a helicopter but authorities were unable to retrieve them. On June 14, two teams from paramilitary soldiers and the Indian Mountaineering Federation were sent from two different directions to reach the area and retrieve the bodies.
After about two weeks of climbing, the soldiers retrieved the bodies at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) and shifted them to a base camp, from where they were picked up by helicopters on Wednesday.
Officials said the seven bodies were found roped together.
Sandwiched between India and China, Nanda Devi East is a twin peak of Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest mountain and the world’s 23rd highest. The two peaks are connected by a razor-sharp 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) ridge at an elevation of 6,666 meters (22,000 feet).
Tenzing Norgay, the first man to climb Mount Everest along with Sir Edmund Hillary, recently described Nanda Devi East as the toughest peak in the Himalayas. Since so few have managed to climb it, the mountain has remained pristine, unlike littered and congested Everest.
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Choppers retrieve 7 bodies believed to be Himalayan climbers
Choppers retrieve 7 bodies believed to be Himalayan climbers
- Veteran British mountaineer Martin Moran was leading three other Britons, two Americans, an Australian and an Indian on an expedition to climb Nanda Devi East
- After two weeks of climbing, soldiers retrieved the bodies at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters and moved them to a base camp, from where they were picked up by helicopters
Faced with Trump, Greenlanders try to reassure their children
NUUK: In a coffee shop in Greenland’s capital Nuuk, Lykke Lynge looked fondly at her four kids as they sipped their hot chocolate, seemingly oblivious to the world’s convulsions.
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households.
Dictated by the more or less threatening pronouncements of the US president, it has been an unsettling experience for some people here — but everyone is trying to reassure their children.
Lynge, a 42-year-old lawyer, relied on her Christian faith.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the world,” she said. “But even if we love our country, we have even higher values that allow us to sleep soundly and not be afraid,” she said.
As early as January 27, 2025, one week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Greenlandic authorities published a guide entitled “How to talk to children in times of uncertainty?“
“When somebody says they will come to take our country or they will bomb us or something, then of course children will get very scared because they cannot navigate for themselves in all this news,” said Tina Dam, chief program officer for Unicef in the Danish territory.
- Unanswerable questions -
This guide — to which the UN agency for children contributed — recommends parents remain calm and open, listen to their children and be sensitive to their feelings, and limit their own news consumption.
As in many parts of the world, social media, particularly TikTok, has become the primary source of information for young people.
Today, children have access to a lot of information not meant for them, said Dam — “and definitely not appropriate for their age,” she added.
“So that’s why we need to be aware of that as adults and be protective about our children and be able to talk with our children about the things they hear — because the rhetoric is quite aggressive.”
But reassuring children is difficult when you do not have the answers to many of the questions yourself.
Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist, a 41-year-old consultant, said she talked a lot with her 13-year-old daughter, Manumina.
The teenager is also immersed in TikTok videos but “doesn’t seem very nervous, luckily, as much as maybe we are,” she added.
“Sometimes there are questions she’s asking — about what if this happens — that I don’t have any answers to” — because no one actually has the answer to such questions, she said.
- ‘Dear Donald Trump’ -
The Arctic territory’s Inuit culture also helped, said Kleist.
“We have a history and we have conditions in our country where sometimes things happen and we are used to being in situations that are out of our control,” said Kleist.
“We try to adapt to it and say, well, what can I do in this situation?“
Some Greenlandic children and teenagers are also using social media to get their message out to the world.
Seven-year-old Marley and his 14-year-old sister Mila were behind a viral video viewed more than two million times on Instagram — the equivalent of 35 times the population of Greenland.
Serious in subject but lighthearted in tone, the boy addresses the American president.
“Dear Donald Trump, I have a message for you: you are making Greenlandic kids scared.”
Accompanied by hard stares, some serious finger-wagging and mostly straight faces, he and his sister go on to tell Trump: “Greenland is not for sale.”
“It’s a way to cope,” his mother, Paninnguaq Heilmann-Sigurdsen, told AFP of the video. “It’s kid-friendly, but also serious.
“I think it’s a balance between this is very serious, but also, this is with kids.”
Since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year with a renewed ambition to seize Greenland, international politics has intruded into the Arctic island’s households.
Dictated by the more or less threatening pronouncements of the US president, it has been an unsettling experience for some people here — but everyone is trying to reassure their children.
Lynge, a 42-year-old lawyer, relied on her Christian faith.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the world,” she said. “But even if we love our country, we have even higher values that allow us to sleep soundly and not be afraid,” she said.
As early as January 27, 2025, one week after Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Greenlandic authorities published a guide entitled “How to talk to children in times of uncertainty?“
“When somebody says they will come to take our country or they will bomb us or something, then of course children will get very scared because they cannot navigate for themselves in all this news,” said Tina Dam, chief program officer for Unicef in the Danish territory.
- Unanswerable questions -
This guide — to which the UN agency for children contributed — recommends parents remain calm and open, listen to their children and be sensitive to their feelings, and limit their own news consumption.
As in many parts of the world, social media, particularly TikTok, has become the primary source of information for young people.
Today, children have access to a lot of information not meant for them, said Dam — “and definitely not appropriate for their age,” she added.
“So that’s why we need to be aware of that as adults and be protective about our children and be able to talk with our children about the things they hear — because the rhetoric is quite aggressive.”
But reassuring children is difficult when you do not have the answers to many of the questions yourself.
Arnakkuluk Jo Kleist, a 41-year-old consultant, said she talked a lot with her 13-year-old daughter, Manumina.
The teenager is also immersed in TikTok videos but “doesn’t seem very nervous, luckily, as much as maybe we are,” she added.
“Sometimes there are questions she’s asking — about what if this happens — that I don’t have any answers to” — because no one actually has the answer to such questions, she said.
- ‘Dear Donald Trump’ -
The Arctic territory’s Inuit culture also helped, said Kleist.
“We have a history and we have conditions in our country where sometimes things happen and we are used to being in situations that are out of our control,” said Kleist.
“We try to adapt to it and say, well, what can I do in this situation?“
Some Greenlandic children and teenagers are also using social media to get their message out to the world.
Seven-year-old Marley and his 14-year-old sister Mila were behind a viral video viewed more than two million times on Instagram — the equivalent of 35 times the population of Greenland.
Serious in subject but lighthearted in tone, the boy addresses the American president.
“Dear Donald Trump, I have a message for you: you are making Greenlandic kids scared.”
Accompanied by hard stares, some serious finger-wagging and mostly straight faces, he and his sister go on to tell Trump: “Greenland is not for sale.”
“It’s a way to cope,” his mother, Paninnguaq Heilmann-Sigurdsen, told AFP of the video. “It’s kid-friendly, but also serious.
“I think it’s a balance between this is very serious, but also, this is with kids.”
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