Ten bodies have been spotted after a 41-member team of mountaineers got trapped in an avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district on Tuesday, the principal of the local Nehru Institute of Mountaineering said.

However, the state disaster management authority had confirmed only four deaths by late evening.

The avalanche struck the Mount Draupadi Ka Danda-2 peak at an altitude of about 17,000 feet at around 8.45am.

At the time, the team of 34 trainee mountaineers and seven instructors from the Uttarkashi-based Nehru Institute was returning after summiting, principal Colonel Amit Bisht said.

The team members got stuck in crevasses, Bisht said. He added that 10 bodies had been spotted, of which four had been recovered.

Uttarkashi disaster management officer Devendra Patwal had earlier in the day said that eight of those trapped had been rescued.

The state disaster management authority said a team of five state disaster response force personnel and three instructors from the Nehru Institute had been dropped off at the institute’s Dokrani Bamak glacier base camp to conduct the search and rescue operation.

Two helicopters from the air force base camp in Sarsawa, Uttar Pradesh, had conducted a recce of the avalanche site before returning to Harshil helipad.

Rescue operations were halted for the night because of darkness and bad weather.

An army ALH helicopter from the air force station in Bareilly was waiting at the Indo-Tibetan Border Police helipad in Matli to join the search and rescue on Wednesday morning.