Three trekkers killed in landslide near Manali

A Briton along with two Indian mountaineers was killed in a landslide near this picturesque Himachal Pradesh town, police said Saturday.

A mountaineering team comprising foreigners and Indians was caught in a landslide Friday evening in the Beas Kund area when they were returning after scaling a peak, investigating officer Neel Chand Sharma told IANS.

The dead included Briton Alan Maxwell Slater, Sanjay Kumar from Palampur town and an official of a Delhi-based company which organised the expedition.

Kumar's body is yet to be traced, Sharma said.

He said the other mountaineers were safe and at a camp in Beas Kund, a four-hour trek from this town.

Rescue teams from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports, a government-run institute in Manali, and the police have reached the spot.

Manali is around 250 km from the state capital Shimla.

Backpackers, especially from the US, Britain, Italy, France and Germany, descend on Manali from August to October every year. Most of them prefer to trek in the hills overlooking Manali.