Recovered GoPro Footage Reveals the Last Minutes of Himalayan Climbers’ Lives

A group of eight climbers went missing in the Indian Himalayas back in May. Now, Indian officials have discovered and released footage from a GoPro, which could be the “black box,” or the key to figuring out what went wrong in the expedition.

The clip, which was released by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) on their Twitter account, is less than two minutes long and shows the group moving slowly towards an unnamed peak.

Last visuals of the mountaineers' team near the summit on unnamed peak near the #NandaDevi east. ITBP search team of mountaineers found the memory video device at 19K ft while they were searching the area where bodies were spotted. pic.twitter.com/0BI87MEA8Y

— ITBP (@ITBP_official) July 8, 2019

“It was mesmerizing for us to see the footage,” said ITBP deputy inspector general APS Nambadia at a press meeting.

The group was given a permit to summit Nanda Devi East – the second highest mountain in India. Before that attempt, the group set out to prepare by climbing a formerly unclimbed peak, according to a report by Reuters. It was on this peak that the incident occurred.

The current explanation, and most probable cause for their deaths, is believed to be an untimely avalanche. ITBP spokesman Vivek Kumar Pandey believes that the weight of the group, as a unit, caused a fragile snow ledge to give way.

Four Britons, two Americans, one Australian, and one Indian liaison officer underwent the expedition. Seven of the bodies were found a month after their disappearance. The expedition leader, Martin Moran, has been a British mountain guide since 1985. His is the only body which remains missing.

The GoPro was retrieved at 5,800 meters in the midst of the ITBP’s search in the periphery. It was found in the area where some of the missing bodies were discovered. The clip is now essential to the ITBP’s inquiry into the incident. According to Pandey, it is being used to “analyze what went wrong with their mission.”

Among the other retrieved items are climbing gear, documents, and a small penguin doll.

The Himalayas have taken on a particularly deadly reputation in the past few years. “Traffic” on Mount Everest has caused two people to die of altitude sickness and suffocation in May. This year alone has seen at least eleven deaths on the peak.

While traffic has provoked many of these deaths, recent studies have cited more natural perpetrators. Glaciers in the Everest region are reportedly thinning, leading to many of these distressing cases. How this will affect future access to popular trekking routes remains to be seen.

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