2 foreign climbers rescued after being stranded in India's Himalayas for 3 days

LUCKNOW, India -- Two foreign climbers have been rescued after being stranded for three days on a mountain in India’s Himalayan north.

Fay Jane Manners from the United Kingdom and Michelle Theresa Dvorak from the United States were ascending a rocky section of the Chaukhamba-3 peak in India’s Uttarakhand state when they got stranded there, said Sandeep Tiwari, a senior administrative officer of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district. The climbers were rescued on Sunday, he said.

The climbers were first reported stranded on Thursday when a rockfall severed their rope, sending their bags — along with crucial supplies like food, tent and climbing gear — into a gorge. The climbers also lost most of their communication equipment, but managed to send out an emergency message the same day.

“We were pulling up my bag and she (Dvorak) had her bag on her. And the rockfall came, cut the rope with the other bag, and it just went down the entire mountain,” Manners told local reporters on Sunday.

The rescue operation took 80 hours to complete and involved the Indian air force and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority.

Rajkumar Negi, a spokesperson for India’s disaster management agency, said that two Indian Air Force helicopters dispatched on Friday to help with the search were unable to locate the climbers. But on Saturday, a French mountaineering team, which was also attempting to climb the Chaukhamba-3 peak, located the stranded climbers and relayed their coordinates to the rescue authorities.

The Indian air force said in a statement on social platform X that it airlifted the climbers on Sunday “from 17,400 feet, showcasing remarkable coordination in extreme conditions."

Chaukhamba-3 is a mountain peak in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.