Beas tragedy: Ninth body recovered, wait continues for 15 other families

The News Minute| June 18, 2014| One more body of a Hyderabad engineering college student was traced Wednesday in the Beas river, taking the total bodies recovered to nine. A total of 15 students and a tour operator are still missing.Rescue workers said the latest victim has been identified as P. Venkata Durga Tarun whose swollen body surfaced from the river bed."The body, which was swollen, surfaced near the Pandoh dam, some 12 km downstream from the accident spot," Jaideep Singh, commanding officer of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), told IANS.  "We are expecting that more bodies, which are in the process of getting bloated, would automatically start surfacing in the water in the next two or three days," he said.He added that one more body was recovered Wednesday, but it was of a local.A massive search operation continued for the 10th day to locate the remaining 15 of the 24 students and a tour operator, swept away June 8 after water was released into the river without a warning from a nearby hydropower project, officials said.The students were from the V.N.R. Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology and they were on an excursion to Manali.