Joshimath, Uttarakhand, March 2016. Archive landscape, not the crash scene: Bibek Raj Pandeya / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped; adapted photo under the same license.
A helicopter crashed near Joshimath in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand today, prompting a joint rescue operation, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said Friday.
Dhami said authorities had received news of the crash near Chai village, close to Joshimath. The district administration, disaster management department and State Disaster Response Force were conducting the rescue operation, he said in an official statement on X.
“I myself am continuously monitoring the entire incident,” Dhami said, according to a translation of his Hindi statement. He said he had instructed authorities to immediately airlift anyone seriously injured to higher-level medical centers for treatment.
Rescue underway; casualty details unconfirmed
The chief minister’s statement did not give a confirmed death toll, the number of people aboard or the condition of the passengers. His airlift instructions did not establish that any injured passengers had already been located or evacuated.
Dhami also did not identify the helicopter’s operator, its route or the cause of the crash in the announcement. Those details remained unconfirmed in the official statement reviewed by JBizNews.
The announcement was posted at 9:19 a.m. UTC on October 30, equivalent to 2:49 p.m. in India. Dhami closed his message by expressing hope for the passengers’ safe return.
JBizNews Global Desk | NEW DELHI
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