Avalanche kills four at Nepal's Himlung Himal base camp

Rescue teams dug through snow at the base camp of Himlung Himal in north-central Nepal on Monday, searching for a dozen people swept away by an avalanche that killed at least four, the Associated Press reported. Ten people were rescued from the 7,126-metre (23,380-foot) peak, in Manang district, after the avalanche struck early on Sunday.

Rescuers from the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, which is leading the effort, recovered two bodies on Sunday and two more on Monday. All those killed or missing were Nepali nationals. They had been at base camp preparing for foreign clients to arrive and climb the peak during the autumn climbing season that began in September.

Tul Singh Gurung, president of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, told the AFP news agency early Monday that the search was continuing for 14 expedition workers. The count fell to 12 when two more bodies, identified by the association as Birendra Gurung and Ghanshyam Rai, were recovered later that day.

Guides dig out the buried tents

Eight experienced mountain guides from the association took advantage of improving weather on Monday to dig through the snow that had covered tents at the base camp, according to the Associated Press. Twelve people are missing, the news agency reported.

The search team is led by Mingma G Sherpa, operator of Imagine Nepal Trek and Expedition and an international mountain guide. Guides held overnight in Chame, the district headquarters of Manang, were flown by helicopter to the Himlung base camp on Monday morning, the Kathmandu Post reported. Senior Captain Pasang Norbu Sherpa of Prabhu Helicopter said the search resumed after the aircraft dropped the team at the camp.

Guides experienced at high altitude are searching likely locations and assessing conditions. Bad weather and difficult mountain terrain have slowed the operation.

Helicopters brought the remains of the two people found on Sunday down to Kathmandu airport on Monday, and they were taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital. The bodies had first been flown to Chame Hospital, then carried to Tribhuvan International Airport aboard a Kailash Helicopter aircraft and transferred by hearse, the Kathmandu Post reported. Family members and friends gathered at the hospital morgue.

Who was at the camp

More than two dozen Nepali high-altitude workers and guides from Himalayan Holidays and Imagine Nepal Trek and Expedition travelled from Kathmandu to Himlung about two weeks earlier to prepare for the climbing season, the Kathmandu Post reported. They had been working on the climbing route and setting up the base camp when the avalanche buried their tents.

Two of the dead are climbing guides, Pasang Bhote and Chhebi Bhote, both from Sankhuwasabha, according to Sherpa Legend, which reported that their bodies were dug out at the base camp and flown to Chame. Fourteen kitchen and camp-support staff from the two expedition companies remain unaccounted for, the outlet reported.

No foreign climbers had reached the mountain. The Nepali team had been sent ahead to prepare the camp, clear and manage the route and fix ropes, with the clients expected in five to six days, said Bibhuti Chand Thakur, founder of Himalayan Holidays Trekking. Himalayan Holidays Nepal was readying camps for a 14-member all-female student climbing team from the United Arab Emirates due to fly into Kathmandu on October 1, Sherpa Legend reported.

Thakur, who has organised trekking and mountaineering expeditions in the Himalaya for more than three decades, said the team first reported that eight of 22 members could not be contacted, and that the number later rose to 14. A Sherpa working on Himlung called Himalayan Holidays' senior manager, Debashish Malla, at about 9:40am on Sunday to ask for a rescue helicopter. Another call came later, and then contact was lost again.

Weather grounded the first helicopters

Private helicopters were on standby in Kathmandu and Pokhara through Sunday morning but could not fly. Dawa Futi Sherpa, general manager of Imagine Nepal, said a helicopter and a group of experienced mountain guides were waiting at Kathmandu airport, among them Mingma Gyalzen of Imagine Nepal and seven other guides, and that conditions there were keeping them on the ground. Ram Krishna Lamichhane, director general of the Department of Tourism, said the government had also been unable to send a helicopter because of the weather.

Other Sherpas hoping to join the rescue could not reach the area over land, making an immediate ground rescue impossible. Eleven certified guides flew out of Kathmandu on Sunday afternoon, eight aboard a Prabhu Helicopter aircraft and three aboard a Kailash Helicopter aircraft, Sherpa Legend reported. Seven reached Himlung on the first flight, among them Mingma G, Ashish Gurung, Pasang Kaji Sherpa and Pemba Tsering Sherpa; four more, scheduled for a second Prabhu flight, were held back in Chame by deteriorating weather.

Two bodies were found as rescuers worked until 6pm last night. The search continues for 14 expedition workers who are still missing.

Rajendra Lama, secretary general of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, said two bodies were recovered on Sunday night and two more on Monday morning, teleSUR English reported. Mingma G Sherpa said the avalanche struck while 14 kitchen staff from two climbing teams and two climbing guides were at the camp. Eight mountain guides from the National Mountain Guides Association of Nepal were at the site, along with members of other rescue teams.

Hopes of finding survivors fade

Rescuers who recovered the two bodies said it was very unlikely the missing would be found alive, because the tents had been buried beneath more than 15 feet of snow, Sherpa Legend reported. Ashish Gurung, a member of the rescue team, said hopes were fading. The search team descended to Phu valley for the night on Sunday and was due back at base camp on Monday morning, the Nepal National Mountain Guides Association said.

What struck the base camp

A slab avalanche came down on Himlung base camp, in Narpa Bhumi Rural Municipality in Manang, in the early hours of Sunday, burying tents where expedition support staff were sleeping. Mingma G Sherpa, speaking from Phu village on Sunday evening, said it came quietly, without making much noise, and that many of those buried never realised what was happening.

No official cause has been given. The avalanche followed days of heavy snowfall and continuous rain in the region, and weather warnings had already been issued; some climbing teams moved to lower ground while others stayed, the Sunday Guardian reported. Nepal Police Deputy Superintendent Shailendra Thapa, a police spokesperson, said details were still being gathered, and police said the full extent of the damage and casualties had not been confirmed.

Manang district recorded multiple avalanches and landslides on Sunday, and authorities were also occupied with rescuing other tourists who may have been in the wider base camp area. Flooding and landslides in the district were caused by heavy rainfall, the district administration said.

A country still counting its dead

Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 21 other people were killed and five more are missing in different parts of the country between Thursday and Sunday. The government has issued warnings of severe weather across the entire Himalayan nation. The avalanche came as Nepal recovers from flooding in August that swept away several villages and killed more than 1,400 people; the authority put the number still missing at 5,285 and the number rescued at 13,795.

We could have saved lives but due to bad weather, we reached the accident site only in the evening.

Researchers from the World Weather Attribution group said in a report released on September 17 that the August disaster was not caused by a single extreme weather event but was a "compound crisis" shaped by long-term warming, glacier retreat, permafrost thaw and geological instability.

Lamichhane said initial information indicated that the missing people included kitchen staff, Sherpa guides and other support workers. The Department of Tourism, which issues permits for expeditions on Himlung, is monitoring the situation and coordinating with the relevant agencies. It is Himalayan Holidays' second Himlung expedition this season, Thakur said.

Mingma G Sherpa said his team had tried since Friday to persuade those at base camp to move down to the lower valley, and that the warnings were not taken seriously. Two of his own staff, his cook and the cook's assistant, are among the missing, he said, adding that the rest of his team was safe. The search was continuing on Monday.