Team to retrieve Swede’s body from Kangla Jot

A twelve-member rescue team from the Himalayan Mountaineering and Allied Sports Institute in Manali will leave for Kangla Jot on Friday to retrieve the body of Swedish national Margot Lydia Aulikki Ryannen, who disappeared 22 years ago. A helicopter recce was carried out today. ‘‘The ground conditions and weather are reasonably good for evacuation of bodies by road,’’ said B.R. Verma, Deputy Commissioner, Lahaul, after the recce. The team is expected to reach the glacier on September 12 and will try to extricate the bodies within the next two days.

Margot was 30 when she went missing in 1982 while on a trek in the Western Himalayas with her American fiance. Last month, her body was spotted by a porter on the frozen heights of Kangla Jot, close to the Kangla Pass.

The question is if the body is actually that of Margot, though the Swedish Embassy feels it’s the closest match going by a ‘‘permit’’ recovered from her body. Since the one Margot had was valid for two, chances are that one of the three bodies could be that of her fiance. Said a Swedish Embassy spokesperson: ‘We have checked our records and sent a name to the local officials through the Ministry of External Affairs.’’ The Embassy will inform Margot’s family only after her identity is established.