Five bodies spotted in Indian Himalayas

A search team in the Indian Himalayas has spotted five bodies on the unnamed peak where eight climbers are believed to have gone missing a week ago.

The climbers - four from Britain, two from the United States, and one each from Australia and India - were reported missing by colleagues on Friday after they failed to return to their base camp near Nanda Devi, India’s second highest mountain.

An air force helicopter spotted the five bodies on a flight over the area where they went missing, Vijay Kumar Jogdande, the top government official in the nearby Pithoragarh district.

“Four bodies can be seen together and a fifth slightly away from the others,” he said.

The search mission was now working on the assumption that all eight climbers had been killed, he said.

“We are trying to retrieve the bodies. We believe the other three will be nearby,” he said.

The group was attempting to scale a previously unclimbed and unnamed peak believed to be about 6,477 meters (21,250 feet) high, according to Facebook posts from the group's expedition company. The alarm was raised a few days after they failed to return to camp.

The eight climbers did not have permission to climb an unnamed peak, Indian authorities said Monday.

Jogdande added that if authorities had known that the eight climbers were planning on climbing the unnamed peak instead of Nanda Devi East, they "would not have given permission."

He said that heavy rain and high winds in the area had been hampering search efforts.

The British Association of Mountain Guides (BMG) identified British national Martin Moran as the group's leader and one of those missing.

"Martin Moran was leading six clients and an Indian National," said BMG President Mark Charlton in the statement, which was posted on Facebook. "The BMG is assisting where possible and is in contact with the Indian authorities."

Moran owns Scottish-based mountaineering adventure company Moran Mountain, which runs climbing expeditions in the Alps, Norway and the Himalayas. On its website, the company said it is one of "Britain's most experienced mountain adventure companies."