Two more deaths take Everest toll to 6 in a month

kathmandu — Two more climbers have died on Mount Everest, taking to six the death toll on the world’s highest mountain in the past month, fuelling safety concerns among mountaineers, officials said on Monday.

The body of an Indian climber was spotted on Mount Everest on Monday. Sherpa rescuers spotted the body of Indian climber Ravi Kumar, but it was impossible to retrieve the body, said Thupden Sherpa of Arun Treks and Expedition. It appeared that Kumar had fallen some 200 meters below the route, he said.

A 54-year-old Australian, Francesco Enrico Marchetti, died on the Tibetan side of Everest, while Vladimir Strba, 48, of Slovakia, perished near a feature called the Balcony in the south in Nepal, officials said. Both climbers died on Sunday.

Marchetti died of apparent altitude sickness about 8,300 metres above sea level on his summit approach, said Navin Trital of the Expedition Himalaya company that coordinated logistics for the climber. “He fell sick and died while being brought down to a lower camp,” Trital told Reuters in the capital, Kathmandu. .

Strba died at around 8,400 metres on the Nepali side in the “death zone”, where the air is very thin, Tourism Department official Gyanendra Shrestha said. He also said the exact circumstances leading to Strba’s death were not clear.

An American climber died on Sunday, while rescuers spotted the body of an Indian climber, who fell 200 metres to his death after scaling the peak a day earlier, a Tourism Department official said.

On April 30, famed Swiss climber Ueli Steck fell to his death near Mount Everest while preparing to climb it. An 85-year-old Nepali man died at base camp this month while trying to set a record for the oldest climber.— Reuters, AP