Nepal considers limiting access to Mount Everest after multiple deaths
This action is the resultant of at least 11 deaths, 8 alone from India
New Delhi: Under pressure after a deadly season on traffic-clogged Mount Everest, Nepal is considering tightening access to the world’s highest peak, but mountaineering experts fear the proposed changes could amount to little more than lip service.
Eleven people died during the climbing season that ended this week, as record numbers lined the route to the summit. Although overcrowding was blamed for at least four deaths, many say inexperience is a bigger killer.
IAF’s helicopter carrying elite paramilitary mountaineers took off on Wednesday for a “very high-risk” operation to retrieve five dead climbers and three others believed killed scaling a treacherous Himalayan peak.
The remains of the three others, all part of originally a 12-member team led by highly experienced British climber Martin Moran, were believed to be nearby. Four other Britons split from the bigger group and were rescued on the weekend.
A photo from May 21 of a long line of mountaineers struggling to make their way to the top of a ridge had gone viral last month. It was when good weather forecast drove around 250 climbers, and almost as many Sherpas, to scale the mountain all at once, leading to a long line at a bottleneck, which proved fatal for many.
Unlike Tibet, which caps the number of Everest climbers at 300, there are no limits from Nepal, making for an exceedingly profitable — and dangerous — business.
As cheaper operators have entered the fray, the number of climbers has shot up, creating deadly bottlenecks en-route to the top of the 8,848-metre (29,029-feet) peak — especially when bad weather cuts the number of summit days, as it did this year.
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