The Army stated on Thursday that it decided to end the search operation for Arunachal Pradesh mountaineer Tapi Mra and his associate, as it was not safe for anyone to move beyond Camp 2 in East Kameng district.
The search and rescue operation was launched by the Army, after East Kameng district administration sought their help to locate Mra, and his associate Niku Dao, who were reported missing on August 27. Mra and Dao were part of the 13-member team led by Mra—the first mountaineer from Arunachal Pradesh to have scaled Mt. Everest on May 21, 2009—that was on an expedition to Mt. Kyarisatam or Mt. Chiumo.
“Everything humanly possible over the past three weeks to find the missing mountaineers was done, but the mission ended as the situation was not safe for anybody beyond Camp-2 area,” read a statement issued on Thursday by Lt Col A S Walia, the defence spokesperson based at Tezpur in neighbouring Assam.
The search-and-rescue team used their experts and took help of other mountaineers to carry out the search on foot, and simultaneously used Cheetah and ALH helicopters to reach their base camp. Braving difficult terrain and weather conditions, the team reached the base camp on September 10. “A few flags and some ration items indicating signs of the expedition team in and around the area were spotted. But there was no trace of the missing persons,” said the statement.
Army helicopters on September 11 carried out a detailed recce of the entire area up to Mt. Chiumo and spotted footprints near the glaciated portion of the camp. The Army also took help from satellite technology to pinpoint the whereabouts of the missing mountaineers, without much success.
“We put in our best efforts and took a lot of risks to look for our mountaineers Tapi Mra and Niku Dao. Having put in so much effort, and being passionately involved in this, there could have been no better soldierly satisfaction than to have found them,” said the army statement.