Oct 2, 6:01 AM
Himlung’s deadliest lesson: Nepal’s mountain economy pays in bodies
An avalanche at a base camp near the Chinese border killed at least 15 expedition workers, while rescuers said one worker still could not be found and the search was nearing its end.
A mountain camp in Nepal has once again become a graveyard, and not for the first time. An avalanche swept through Himlung base camp in central Nepal, killing at least 15 expedition workers and leaving one worker missing. By Thursday, rescuers had recovered eight more bodies from the snowbound site, which sits near the Chinese border.
The camp was not full of tourists chasing a summit photo. Nepali workers were pitching tents and fixing ropes for later expeditions when the avalanche struck early on Sunday at the 7,126-metre Himlung peak. The foreign climbers had not yet reached the site, a detail that says something about the hierarchy of risk on these mountains: those who prepare the route often face the first and worst of it.
Tul Singh Gurung, president of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, said 15 bodies had been recovered in total and that the bodies found on Thursday were expected to be flown to Kathmandu by helicopter. He added that the chances of finding the missing worker were slim and that the rescue operation was likely to wind up. Eleven rescuers, including experienced guides, had been working through more than four metres of snow that had buried the tents at base camp.
The recovery has come in grim instalments. Two mountain guides were found on Sunday, two kitchen staff on Monday, and three more bodies on Tuesday before Thursday’s recovery added to the toll. Nepal has seen worse mountaineering disasters in recent years, including an avalanche on Everest in 2014 that killed 16 people and an earthquake there in 2015 that killed 18. The country is also still dealing with the aftermath of floods triggered by a mountain glacial collapse on 26 August, which killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,000 missing.
That is the backdrop to a country whose economy leans heavily on mountaineering and trekking tourism. Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks, and Himlung is a popular starting point for climbers aiming at 7,000-metre peaks. The industry brings money, of course; it also brings the sort of arithmetic that no brochure advertises. On this mountain, as so often in Nepal, the people doing the work are the first to be buried when things go wrong.
Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com
