Seven people, including a toddler, have been killed in India’s northern Uttarakhand state when a helicopter ferrying them for a Hindu pilgrimage crashed in the Himalayas, officials say.
Officials from the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority told reporters the chopper took off at about 5:30am (00:00 GMT) on Sunday from the temple town of Kedarnath for Guptkashi, a town some 37km (23 miles) away, but crashed shortly after takeoff.
The deceased have been identified as the pilot, Captain Rajveer Singh Chauhan, and passengers Vikram Rawat, Vinod Devi, Trishti Singh, Rajkumar Jaiswal, his wife Shraddha Jaiswal and their two-year-old daughter, Kashi.
The bodies were badly burned in a fire that followed the crash, authorities said.
Uttarakhand’s State Disaster Response Force told the ANI news agency that the crash site is located in a remote and dense forest area, adding that the rescue operation is under way in coordination with the local police.
Officials said the crash was believed to have been caused by poor weather conditions.
In a post on X, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami called the incident “very sad”.
BBC