Chilling GoPro footage revealed Himalayan climbers' final movements before avalanche

Chilling GoPro footage captured the final movements of a group of climbers killed by an avalanche in the Indian Himalayas.

The group, made up of four Brits, two Americans, an Australian and their Indian liaison officer, went missing while attempting to scale a previously unclimbed peak without permission in May 2019.

It wasn't until a month later that Indian authorities managed to recover seven bodies, leading them to discover the GoPro footage captured at 19,000 feet by one of the climbers.

The bodies were recovered near the Nanda Devi East, with footage leading authorities to believe the group had been struck by an avalanche.

Authorities confirmed the group did not have permission to climb the unnamed peak, and insisted if they had asked, they 'would not have given permission'.

The eight missing climbers were part of a group of 12, led by British mountain expert Martin Moran, who had sought permission to climb Nand Devi East, which is the lower of the two adjacent peaks of the second highest mountain in India.

Sharing the footage on X, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) wrote: "Last visuals of the mountaineers’ team near the summit on unnamed peak. ITBP search team of mountaineers found the memory video device at 19K ft while they were searching the area where bodies were spotted."

Between 1950 and 2021, 1,042 deaths were recorded in the Himalayas and a third are believed to have been caused by avalanches, the Jordan Times reports.

Unfortunately, this number could be set to increase in coming years due to rising temperatures melting glaciers twice as fast as before the millennium. While more research needs to be done on this subject, climbers have reported widening crevasses, running water on slopes previously covered by snow and more glacial lakes forming.

The footage captures the climbers' final visuals (@ITBP/X)

The unpredictability of glaciers can lead to an increase in avalanches, which are defined by a mass of snow, ice and rocks falling rapidly down a mountain side.

Meanwhile, experts have raised concerns about the volume of climbing tourists flocking to Nepal, Pakistan and Tibet every year to climb the Himalayas, many of whom are said to be lacking in the necessary experience needed.

Back in 2019, so many climbers ascended on Everest that a traffic jam was formed, forcing people to wait or hours in below-freezing temperatures, causing a number of medical issues as a result of low oxygen levels, such as sickness and exhaustion.