Two Malayalees among nine dead of trekking group, four more bodies found

NEW DELHI: Two Malayalees in the trekking group were among nine dead in an accident in Uttarakhand. The two have been identified as Asha Sudhakar (71) from Kanyakumari Thakkala and V K Sindhu (45) from Palakkad.

Sindhu was a software engineer. Asha retired from SBI as the senior manager. Four more bodies were found today. The accident happened when the group on a trekking expedition to Sahastra Tal was hit by bad weather on Tuesday.

Apart from Asha and Sindhu, the others dead are Anitha Rangappa (55), K Venkatesh Prasad (53), Vinayak Mungurwadi (52), Sujata Mungurwadi (52), K P Padmanabha (50), Chitra Praneeth (48) and Padmini Hegde (34).

Five dead bodies were recovered the other day. The group left on May 29. The dead were part of a group of trekkers from the Karnataka Mountaineering Association. They went to a lake which was at an altitude of 4,400 meters.

There were 22 people in the group. 18 of them were from Bengaluru, one from Maharashtra and three local guides. Four more people are to be found and search for them continues. Asha's husband Sudhakar was also in the group.