Bengaluru, Jun 6 (IANS): Karnataka Minister for Revenue Krishna Byre Gowda said on Thursday that the state government was planning to airlift the bodies of nine trekkers from Uttarakhand's Dehradun to Bengaluru.

The trekkers died while trekking at Sahastra Tal in Uttarakhand due to adverse weather on Wednesday.

Taking to social media, Minister Gowda said that after embalming the bodies in the local hospital in Dehradun, the government was planning to airlift all the bodies to Bengaluru on Thursday itself.

Gowda said, “I met with Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand Radha Raturi and Secretary of Disaster Management Ranjit Sinha to thank them for their swift response during this calamity. I requested their help to arrange an aircraft to transport the bodies to Bengaluru. They have agreed to help.”

“The bodies of five trekkers, identified as Sindhu Wakelam, Asha Sudhakar, Sujatha Mungurwadi, Vinayak Mungurwadi and Chitra Praneeth were airlifted to Uttarkashi. In today's early morning operation four more bodies were recovered and airlifted to Uttarkashi,” he stated.

The other four deceased trekkers are identified as Padmanabha K.P., Venkatesh Prasad K., Anita Rangappa and Padmini Hegde. The post-mortem was conducted in Uttarkashi.

The minister stated that 13 trekkers were rescued by authorities on Wednesday. Eight were already shifted to Dehradun and five other rescued trekkers would also be airlifted from Uttarkashi to Dehradun on Thursday.

The Sahastra Tal trek is a high-altitude trail at 15,000 feet in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. Nine trekkers, part of a 22-member group, died after losing their way due to bad weather while on their way to Sahastra Tal on Tuesday.