12 Nepali guides killed in Everest avalanche

Reuters, KATHMANDU: An avalanche swept down a slope of Mount Everest on Friday, killing 12 Nepali mountaineering guides at the beginning of the main climbing season, a tourism ministry official said.

The avalanche, the deadliest in eight years, hit the most popular route to the peak. Three Nepali guides were injured and up to five people were missing, a senior official said at the ministry’s mountaineering department said.

It was the first major avalanche on Everest this climbing season, when hundreds of foreign and Nepali climbers flock to the mountain to attempt to reach its 8,850-meter peak. The avalanche hit the sherpa guides relatively low on the mountain, between base camp and Camp 1, early on Friday, officials said. Helicopters and rescuers on foot had been sent to the site, a senior official said.

Over 4,000 climbers have scaled Everest’s summit since it was first climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953. The route they took is the one hit by the avalanche on Friday.

Nearly 250 people have died on the mountain till date. Everest is on the border between Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet and can be climbed from both sides.

Nepal has issued permits to 334 foreign climbers to scale Everest this season, up from 328 last year. Nepal plans to cut fees to climb the mountain despite concerns about overcrowding. An equal number of sherpa guides also climb the mountain to help the foreigners. They often go ahead of them, preparing the way by fixing ropes and setting up camps.