Nepal rescuers find bodies of five climbers killed last year

Rescuers in Nepal have found the bodies of five mountaineers, including three foreigners, killed in an avalanche last year near the Chinese border, a local government official said Saturday.

“Five bodies, three foreigners and two Nepalis, who had been missing since last November, have been discovered,” said Biswash Karki, chairman of Gaurishankar Rural Municipality.

The foreigners were an Italian-Canadian, a German and an Italian, he told AFP.

The avalanche hit the climbers on the lower flanks of the 5,630-metre (18,471-foot) Yalung Ri peak, near Nepal’s border with Tibet.

Locals and rescuers discovered the bodies on Thursday, Karki said, adding that the local authority was working to recover them.

“Ever since they went missing, we had been deploying the army, police and local rescue teams to search for them, but thick snow had covered their bodies,” the official said.

Senior local police officer Manoj Kumar Lama said a rescue helicopter was sent to the area on Friday, but “due to bad weather, our team has not been able to reach the spot”.

“Our rescue team will airlift the bodies once the weather clears,” he told AFP.

Home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks, including Mount Everest, Nepal welcomes hundreds of climbers and trekkers every year.

According to the Himalayan Database, an expedition archive, more than 1,000 people have died on peaks since 1950, with avalanches killing almost a third of them.