Two French nationals among 145 dead in Leh

Two French nationals were killed in Friday's devastating cloudburst in Leh while efforts were on to rescue 174 foreign tourists stranded at various places in the district.

The bodies of the two French nationals identified as Augariwelus and Hellot - were extricated from the debris, an ITBP official said. These are the first foreign casualties in the tragedy that had left 145 people dead while over 500 others were missing.

An injured Spanish tourist was evacuated by an army helicopter from Egu belt to Leh.

There are 174 foreigners stranded at various places which are at present cut-off, an army official said.

While 76 foreign tourists are stranded at Pang belt, about 90 are in Lamayaru belt and eight in Darchiks belt in Leh district.

Efforts are on to airlift them, they said adding that inclement weather is hampering operations.

Meanwhile, three members of a Tibetan family living in Leh have died in the flash floods.

However, there was no loss of human life in Sonamling Tibetan settlement's camp, located near Choglamsar in Ladakh, which has been devastated in the floods, a spokesman of Tibetans in exile said.

"Fortunately, there has been no report of any Tibetan killed in the camps till now," a senior official of the central Tibetan administration's home department in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, said today.

Tibetans today offered prayers for the victims at the main Buddhist temple Tsuglakhang in Dharamsala.