The majority of those rescued following an avalanche in India were saved because of the metal containers they were in, according to local media reports.
On Friday, Feb. 28, an avalanche struck a General Reserve Engineer Force (GREF) Camp near Mana village in India’s northern Uttarakhand state — a mountainous location near the border of Tibet — trapping dozens of construction workers.
As previously reported by PEOPLE, 50 people were initially rescued following the incident after being buried under snow and debris, but four eventually succumbed to their injuries and died, authorities said. Five others were still missing as of Feb. 28,
The Indian Army confirmed on X on Sunday, March 2, that eight people had died in the incident after the body of the last missing worker had been recovered at 4:43 p.m. local time that day.
“[The] Indian Army conveys heartfelt condolences to the families of the workers who lost their lives in the unfortunate natural disaster,” the Army said in the X post.
According to The Times of India, 46 workers were able to be rescued thanks to the steel containers they’d been sleeping in.
Workers are pictured amid the rescue mission following an avalanche in India.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police
“These metal shelters saved most of them. They had just enough oxygen to hold on until we got them out,” a senior rescue official said, per the outlet. The publication stated that the outcome would likely have been different if they’d been staying in tents or barracks.
There had been eight metal containers in total, per The Indian Express. The outlet stated that it took a while to find the last three containers “due to the six-feet-deep snow,” which is about 72 inches.
Rescuers said the steel boxes had been “able to withstand the wrecking avalanche and unrelenting weather, which is why a majority of men could be saved,” per the Indian Express.
Sources told the publication that the men had been working on a project connecting Mana village to Mana Pass through Badrinath when the avalanche hit. Uttarakhand Indian Army spokesperson, Lt Colonel Manish Srivastava, confirmed the victims had been part of a team involved in the Shivalik Project of the Border Roads Organization (BRO), dealing with road construction in the Garhwal region, The Indian Express added.
Satyaprakash Yadav, a migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh, was among those rescued, per the BBC. He claimed the “avalanche hit our container like a landslide” and that the container he was in broke apart with the force, the outlet reported, citing a video released by the Indian Army.
“We managed to get out on our own and reached a nearby army guest house, where we stayed overnight,” he said, per the outlet.
Amid the search and rescue operation, the Indian Army shared multiple updates on X alongside several images and videos of those affected.
On Friday, the team insisted the rescue mission would continue “despite harsh weather conditions and continuing snow.”
The minimum temperatures at the area where the avalanche struck had been around 10° Fahrenheit around the time of the incident, according to AFP. Gaurav Kunwar, a former village council member of Mana, told BBC News that the area where the avalanche hit was a “migratory area” and that “no one lives there permanently.”
“Only laborers working on border roads stay there in the winter,” he told the outlet. “There’s also some army presence there. We’ve heard that it has been raining in the area for two days. The road workers were in a camp when the avalanche hit.”
