Rescuers retrieve bodies of nine climbers killed on Nepal’s Mount Gurja
Storm was the deadliest incident to hit Nepal’s mountaineering community since 18 people were killed at Mount Everest’s base camp in 2015
The bodies of five South Korean climbers and their four Nepali guides were retrieved on Sunday from the mountain where they perished in a snowstorm two days earlier, officials said.
“All nine bodies have been retrieved from between the base camp on Mount Gurja and a valley below,” Wangchu Sherpa, managing director of Trekking Camp Nepal, the local organiser of the expedition, said.
Contact with the group was lost on Friday and on Saturday a rescue helicopter spotted several dead bodies scattered along a 1.5km stretch below the base camp at an altitude of 3,500 metres. That helicopter could not land in the area because of poor weather.
On Sunday, another helicopter carrying four trained rescuers was dispatched to the area and able to land on a narrow patch of land just above the base camp, Sherpa said.
The bodies were flown to Gurja village where they were identified as those of the Koreans and their Nepali guides.
The expedition was led by experienced climber Kim Chang-ho. Kim, who in 2013 became the first South Korean to scale all 14 mountains taller than 8,000 metres without supplementary oxygen, also perished in the storm that completely swept away the camp on Friday.