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Updated: Feb 21, 2019 18:01 IST

Heavy snow and rainfall in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district on Thursday hit the operation to rescue five soldiers of the Indian Army, who went missing after an avalanche, near a border post along the border with China.

The five soldiers were a part of a 16-member patrolling party of the army and ITBP personnel which was hit the avalanche near Namgia Dogri near Shipkila village in the tribal district on Wednesday morning. They had gone towards the Shipki La border post from Namagya on Wednesday to repair a damaged water supply line when the avalanche hit them around 11am.

Ten personnel were able to rush to safety but the five army men were trapped in the mound of snow after the avalanche was triggered by fierce snow blizzards in the area. One of them, identified as havaldar Rakesh Kumar from Bilaspur, was rescued but he succumbed to his injuries in the civil hospital in Pooh.

The joint team of about 150 personnel of the army and Indo-Tibetan Border Police, as well as those from the local administration and police, are looking for the five soldiers, officials said. Those who went missing included naik Videsh Chand, rifleman Govind Bahadur Chatri, rifleman Rajesh Rishi, rifleman Arjun Kumar and rifleman Nitin Rana.

“All the five men belonged to the 7th Jammu and Kashmir Rifle,” Kinnaur’s deputy commissioner Gopal Chand said.

“The army launched an operation to rescue them at the break of dawn. But the inclement weather conditions after fresh snowfall hampered rescue operations,” Chand said.

The body of the dead soldier will be brought by road as a helicopter will not be able to fly in the bad weather. Snow triggered avalanche at Pooh nullah and Tinku nullah has also hampered the traffic.

Five other men were also injured in the avalanche and have been identified as sepoy G Belargim, Rajnish Kumar, Mohammad Jishan, Ram Baran and havaldar Tele Lal Chand.

An army spokesperson said that the rescue and search operation would continue till the last man is retrieved.

The search was called off for the night on Wednesday when the area witnessed four to five inches of snowfall, news agency PTI reported. Shipki La is at a height of around 13,000feet and located around 300km from state capital Shimla.

Also read: 11 killed as avalanches strike parts of Kashmir

Himachal shares 260km of porous border with China. Of the total border length, 140km lies along Kinnaur and 80km of the border is along Lahaul and Spiti districts. The international border is jointly manned by the army and ITBP.

Himachal Pradesh is likely to receive moderate to heavy rain and snowfall in the next 24 hours till Friday, according to the met department.