VIJAYAWADA: Two pilgrims from Andhra Pradesh who were stranded in Nepal due to bad weather conditions died of cardiac arrest triggered by altitude sickness.
Grandhi Subba Rao from Kakinada died after suffering a heart attack at Mount Kailash under Tibetan control. The 56-year-old’s body has been flown to Nepalganj and will be taken to his hometown after postmortem.
Rao, one of the founder directors of Greenfield School in Kakinada, had embarked on a pilgrimage to Amarnath and Kailash on June 25 along with his wife Nagaratna Kumari, sister Sudha and brother-in-law Srinivasa Rao. Rao’s family is safe. They were scheduled to return to Kakinada after completing the yatra on July 7.
Another pilgrim, B Laxminarayana Swamy (67) of Penukonda in Anantapur died of breathlessness at Hilsa, his family in Penukonda said. He was a part of the 30-member team from Anantapur that had left for the holy site. Meanwhile, AP Bhavan Resident Commissioner Arja Srikanth is in constant touch with the Nepalese Embassy.
The Indian Embassy in the mountainous country has pegged the number of stranded Indians at 629 at Simikot and 451 at Hilsa. More than 100 of them are from Andhra Pradesh. The MoEF set up hotlines for pilgrims.
The State government is in constant touch with the Centre and the Nepalese Embassy to bring pilgrims back home safely and see to it that they are provided food and medical attention at the base camps.
Poor weather condition in the region has made it difficult to deploy helicopters to evacuate the stranded, but seven more flights have reached Simikot for evacuation. Rescue workers have moved 159 from Simikot to Nepalgunj and over 250 from Hilsa to Simikot.
“Indications suggest that the weather could be conducive for rescue operations tomorrow,” Arja Srikanth said.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, in a series of tweets, said that all the elderly stranded persons had been given health check-ups in Simikot.
“We have requested the government of Nepal to allow the Army’s helicopters to evacuate Indian nationals,’’ she tweeted.