Search on for Indian mountaineer missing in Andes

Helicopter teams from Argentina and Chile are searching the Andes mountains for missing Indian mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu, the government said on Friday.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin tweeted the information about Babu. He went missing on March 24 while climbing the mountain between Chile and Argentina.

Babu is a top Indian mountaineer, having achieved the feat of becoming the "fastest seven summiteer" in the world (172 days in 2006, during which he climbed seven summits on seven days of the week in each calendar month). He is also the first Indian to summit Mt Vinson Massif, the tallest peak in Antarctica and the first person from Andhra Pradesh to scale the Everest.

He is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and IIM-Kolkata. His sister Dorasanamma is in Argentina to monitor the search operations.

Babu left home in Nellore in Andhra Pradesh for the trip on December 16. The weather turned bad just after Babu set out on his trek up the Andes mountains.

His friends and well wishers have launched a Facebook page 'Rescue Malli Mastan Babu', which is updated regularly with news on the latest status of the search operations in the Andes.