Deborah Akinyosoye
Seven people, including a toddler were killed Sunday in India when a helicopter ferrying Hindu pilgrims from a shrine crashed in the Himalayas, officials said.
The fatal accident comes as relatives mourn at least 279 people killed when a passenger plane slammed into a residential area in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad on Thursday.
The helicopter crash left the pilot and all six passengers dead when their chopper came down during the flight from Kedarnath temple, in Uttarakhand state, disaster response official Nandan Singh Rajwar told AFP.
It was likely caused by bad weather, according to state tourism official Rahul Chaubey.
The incident prompted Indian civil aviation authorities to suspend chopper services to shrines in the Himalayas, Chaubey said.
The state’s chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, said there will be “zero tolerance for any compromise with passenger safety” in a post on X.
Pilgrims flock to Kedarnath, which stands at an altitude of 3,584 metres (11,759 feet), and other revered Himalayan shrines during the summer when it is possible to access them.
Helicopter charter firms serve wealthy pilgrims who want to visit mountainous shrines while avoiding arduous trekking.
But there have been multiple mishaps already this season, including a crash last month in which six people were killed.
In a separate incident this month, a pilot was forced to make an emergency landing on a highway after their helicopter developed a technical fault.