A 23-year-old tourist from Telangana and her 26-year-old tourist guide died in an accident while paragliding in North Sikkim, on Friday, April 1. Both of them lost balance while paragliding and fell into a river, police said.
Esha Reddy Sankepalli, a resident of Khammam in Telangana, went to Lachung in North Sikkim on a trip, where the accident took place. She was travelling along with a group, as per a Hindustan Times report. Sandeep Gurung, a resident of Thami Dara in Gangtok, was her tourist guide.
Esha and Sandeep took off from Lachung viewpoint around 9.30 am, police added. They lost balance after their parachute got entangled in a rope because of the strong winds at Phaka and fell into the Lachung river, following which they were swept away by its strong current. Their bodies were stuck beneath boulders in the middle of the river downstream.
A rescue operation by the local police, the Gorkha Regiment and Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel was initiated under the supervision of senior police officers from Chungthang and Lachung. “Resources were mobilised including heavy earthmovers to trace and rescue the two people. Their bodies were recovered around 4pm after a prolonged search operation,” said AB Karki, the district collector of Mangan in Sikkim. In the initial phase of searching, the police said that they were facing difficulties due to strong currents in the river.
According to reports, this was not the first paragliding accident in recent times. In November 2021, a couple from Gujarat narrowly escaped an accident at Nagao beach in Diu when their parachute rope snapped during a parasailing trip. The duo were wearing life jackets and were saved by the lifeguards.
(With PTI inputs)