Indo-Tibetan border police said the cause of the avalanche remained a mystery. Photo / Supplied
Indo-Tibetan border police said the cause of the avalanche remained a mystery. Photo / Supplied
Footage showing the final moments of a team of climbers trying to scale the Himalayas has been released by Indian authorities.
The video shows the team of mountaineers, including four British climbers, two Americans and Australian woman Ruth McCance, moments before tragedy struck.
The eight-member international mountaineering team went missing during an expedition on Nanda Devi East after they were hit by an avalanche in late May.
Indo-Tibetan border police said the cause of the avalanche remained a mystery. Photo / Supplied
The team was reported missing on May 28 when they failed to return to base camp.
The video, which is almost two minutes in duration, shows the climbers roped together. The conditions look clear as they slowly move towards the top of the peak.
But after a few seconds of recording the climb, the screen goes black. The camera, which was carried by the final climber in the line, was later found buried in snow near where seven bodies were uncovered.
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
Indo-Tibetan border police, who released the footage, said in a statement the cause of the avalanche remained a mystery, however they believed the eight climbers' combined weight might have been the trigger.
Last week, the bodies of Mrs McCance and the other climbers were retrieved off the remote mountain.
Paramilitary soldiers located the bodies of seven of the eight climbers at an altitude of more than 5000 metres more than a week ago.
They were then moved in bags by a team travelling on foot to a site where they could be more easily be reached by helicopters.
In a statement, A.P.S. Nambadia, the border police Inspector General, said the footage was "mesmerising".
"Suddenly, we noticed a loud noise," he said. "The video went blank and stopped.
Australian Ruth McCance was among the eight climbers missing in India's Himalayas. Photo / Supplied, Facebook
"It will help us to analyse what went wrong with their mission. The GoPro has proved to be like the black box of an aircraft giving an insight into the last few moments of the climbers."
Nambadia said the operation to find the bodies at an altitude of 6100 metres had been "extremely challenging".
Once the bodies were uncovered, they were flown back to the Pithoragarh district headquarters and kept in a mortuary to be identified.
A search mission for the eighth body had to be stopped on June 27 because of developing severe weather.
