US and UK climbers rescued after 2 days trapped in Himalayas in India

An American climber has been rescued after he and another UK alpinist became trapped for two days at more than 20,000 meters in the Himalayas.

Michelle Dvorak, 31, and Fay Manners, 37, went missing Thursday after their equipment and food fell into a river while climbing India’s Chaukhamba mountain, CBS News affiliate BBC reported.

The two sent an emergency message but the search and rescue team could not find them.

Manners told the BBC they were “terrified” as they tried to do part of the treacherous descent without equipment.

“I saw the bag falling down the mountain and I immediately knew the result of what was going to happen,” he said. “We didn’t have our safety equipment left. We didn’t have a tent. We didn’t have a stove to melt the snow to get water. We didn’t have warm clothes for the evening.”

The terrible grief intensified when it began to snow. They hid on the edge while waiting for rescuers.

“I felt very hot, I was shivering constantly because of the lack of food and my body was losing the ability to keep warm,” said Manners.

The rescue was made difficult by bad weather, fog and high altitude.

“The helicopter took off again, it couldn’t see us. We were destroyed,” Manners told the BBC.

On the second day, the couple began to carefully escape down the mountain. They saw a group of French climbers coming towards them. Manners said they shared their supplies and food and contacted the helicopter company and the exact location.

“I cried with relief knowing that we might survive,” she said.

The Indian Air Force said in an X social media post that its helicopter airlifted the passengers from 17,400 feet after “battling two days of bad weather.”

Chaukhamba is a mountain range in the Garhwal Himalaya in northern India.