Arunachal Missing Mountaineers: Bad weather posing trouble in search and rescue ops by Indian Army

The Indian Army has launched a search and rescue operation to trace two missing mountaineers namely Tapi Mra and his assistant Niku Dao from Arunachal Pradesh. Tapir Mra was the first mountaineer from Arunachal Pradesh to scale the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest.

Tapi Mra and Niku Dao were part of a mountaineering expedition who went missing since August 17 as reported by the six members of the expedition who reached Seppa from their expedition base camp on the evening of August 29.

Army’s highly trained Special Forces and Arunachal Scout teams are on ground zero who are carrying out search operations in the challenging terrain of the expedition area. Already the team is facing hurdles during the search op due to the inclement weather.

According to sources, on July 27 of this year, 37-year-old Tapi Mra, the Adventure Promotion Officer (APO) of the Directorate of Youth Affairs, Arunachal Pradesh government, began his journey to Mount Kyarisatam, which is located in the East Kameng region.

There were seven additional porters on the mission with Tapi Mra, but since August 17, Tapi Mra and one other porter, Niku Dao, have been missing.
Since the start of their ascent towards the Khyar Satam peak, one of the tallest with a base camp located at 4,500 metres above sea level in the East Kameng area, Tapi Mra and Niku Dao have gone untraceable.