KATHMANDU // A helicopter crew on Thursday recovered the body of a Dutch climber who died last week on Mount Everest, while attempts were being made to retrieve the bodies of two others and to locate two people missing on the world’s tallest mountain.
Eric Arnold reached the 8,850-metre summit last Friday, but then died on the descent of apparent altitude sickness near the South Col, at about 8,000m.
A team of climbers was able to take his body down to Camp 2, where it was picked up Thursday morning and taken to Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, and then to a mortuary.
Expedition leader Arnold Coster accompanied the body.
Climbers tried to move two other bodies — of Australian climber Maria Strydom and Indian climber Subhash Paul — to a point where they could be reached by helicopters, which cannot go far beyond Camp 2 because of high winds and the thin air at that altitude.
Ms Strydom and Mr Paul also apparently suffered altitude sickness in the past week.
Meanwhile, another team of Sherpa guides was heading to a spot called the Triangular Face, the final push towards the peak, to search for two Indian climbers who went missing last weekend.
“Other climbers reported they might have spotted the bodies in the area,” mountaineering department official Gyanendra Shrestha said, noting that it was unlikely they would have survived the harsh conditions on the mountain. But there was little time for the search, with bad weather and monsoon rains expected at the end of the month.
If the two Indian climbers are confirmed dead, that would bring the death toll for this year’s Everest climbing season to five. Many had hoped for a safe season, after avalanche disasters left 19 people dead last year and 16 Sherpa guides in 2014.
About 400 foreign climbers, guides and Sherpas have made it to the top of Everest this year.
Separately, Sherpa guide Ang Phurba fell about 2,000m to his death on May 19 while fixing ropes on Lhotse, an 8,516-metre adjacent peak. His body was recovered.
* Associated Press
