A US climber has died on Mount Everest, his expedition organizer said yesterday, the first foreign death on the highest mountain in the world this season.
The 69-year-old mountaineer was on an acclimatization rotation at about 6,400m when he died on Monday.
“He was feeling unwell and passed away at Camp 2. Efforts are under way to bring [back] his body,” Pasang Tshering Sherpa of Beyul Adventure told reporters.
Photo: AFP
Sherpa said that bad weather was hampering the recovery efforts.
Beyul Adventure is a local partner of US-based expedition organizer International Mountain Guides (IMG).
“It is with deep sorrow that IMG reports the death of one of our Everest 2023 team members at Camp 2,” IMG chief executive officer Eric Simonson said in a statement on the company’s Web site.
“We can confirm that this event was not the result of a climbing accident or route condition that would be of potential impact or safety concern to any other teams on the mountain,” he said.
The spring Everest climbing season had a tragic start last month with the death of three Nepalese climbers.
The trio were crossing the treacherous Khumbu icefall as part of a supply mission when a block of glacial ice fell and swept them into a deep crevasse.
Nepal has issued 466 permits to foreign climbers and as most need a guide, more than 900 people are expected to try to summit this season, which runs until early next month.
This could result in heavy traffic and bottlenecks en route to the summit, especially if there is a shorter climbing window because of unfavorable weather.
On average, about five climbers die every year on the world’s highest peak.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home