An Indian couple who were travelling the world died after facing an accidental fall of approximately 800 feet from the Taft Point in California’s Yosemite National Park.
New York: An Indian couple, Vishnu Viswanath (29) and Meenakshi Moorthy (30), fell 800 feet to their deaths from Taft Point in California’s Yosemite National Park this week. They were identified on Monday as a migrant couple from India settled in the U.S.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the couple recently shifted to New York following Vishnu’s job offer at Cisco as a systems engineer based in San Jose. The couple who loved to travel, documented their adventures in a blog named ‘'Holidays and Happily Ever Afters'. Rangers recuperated their bodies using technical climbing and rappelling techniques, on Thursday from the steep terrain of the Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls, and El Capitan, which is a popular tourist spot. Also, helicopter support from the California Highway Patrol for the operation was sent.
"We still do not know what caused them to fall. We're trying to understand what happened. We may never know, (but) from everything we see, this was a tragic fall." said Jamie Richards, Park spokesman.
According to the statement made by the National Park Services, the recovery operation for the visitors who died falling approximately 800 feet from the Taft Point, in an area of very steep terrain, was completed by the afternoon of October 25.
Sources state that the couple were software engineers and have been married for 4 years. Vishnu Viswanath’s Facebook cover page is a picture of the couple posing on the edge of a cliff at the Grand Canyon.
The couple was the alumnus of College of Engineering, Chegannur and a Facebook post by them mentioned that it deeply laments over the couple’s “accidental demise”. The couple belonged to the BTech, Computer Science, and Engineering batch of 2006-10. "Our hearts go to the friends and family members of this lovely couple. May their souls rest in peace," the college said.
Raj Katta (24) of New York mentioned that he knew them while attending Bradley University, in Illinois. He mentioned that they are a really happy couple and that they had decided to take up the job at Cisco 6 months ago and that they would live in California for about a year.
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