Further deaths fuel claims Mount Everest is fatally overcrowded
Fears have been raised that “overcrowding” on Mount Everest is contributing to the deaths of climbers.
Three more climbers died on the world’s highest peak on Thursday, taking the death toll to seven in a week – more than the total for the whole of last year.
All three died of exhaustion while descending amid “traffic jams” of mountaineers near the summit as record numbers make the ascent, despite calls to limit the number of climbing permits.
Two Indian climbers – Kalpana Das, 52, and Nihal Bagwan, 27 – died while coming back down the mountain.
Local tour organiser Keshav Paudel said that Mr Bagwan had been “stuck in the traffic for more than 12 hours and was exhausted”.
A 6 5 - y e a r - o l d Au s t r i a n climber died on the northern Tibet side of the mountain. And American climber Don Cash was one of two fatalities on Wednesday.
Mr Cash fulfilled his dream of climbing the highest mountain on each of the seven continents by reaching the summit of Mount Everest, but died of suspected altitude sickness on the way down.
Officials said he had become ill at the summit and was treated there by his t wo Sherpa guides.
“He got high altitude sickness on top of Everest,” said Pasang Tenje Sherpa, head of Pioneer Adventure, which provided the guides.
“When he was on the top he just fell. The two Sherpas who were with him gave CPR and massages. After that he woke up, then near Hillary Step he fell down again in the same manner, which means he got high altitude sickness.”
Hillary Step is a rocky outcrop near the summit named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first person to reach the summit of the mountain, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, in 1953.
Nepal has issued 381 permits at $ 11,000 ( about £ 8,600) each for the spring climbing season at the world’s highest peak, and t he number of people climbing Everest in 2019 could exceed last year’s record of 807 people reaching the summit.
But the rising numbers of people dying on Everest has led for calls for a limit to the amount of permits issued.
Ben Fogle, t he adventure r and T V presenter who climbed the mountain last year, called for “London Marathon- style lottery” for climbing permits in a Twitter post.
Mr Cash, 55, from Utah, had a long- held dream to climb the “seven summits”, the highest mountains on the seven continents, his daughter Danielle Cook posted on Facebook.
He left his job as a sales executive to tr y to join the seven summits club. In January he climbed Mount Vinson Masif, Antarctica’s tallest peak. He is survived by his wife, Monette, and their four children.