New Delhi: Conquering Mt Everest is any mountaineer’s dream.
Over 400 climbers scaled the world’s highest peak this week. Unfortunately, two of them won’t live to share their experience with near and dear ones.
Indian climbers Arun Kumar Tiwari and Sandeep Are died while descending after successfully summiting the 8,848-metre Everest.
Sandeep died at Camp II due to health complications, and Arun died near the Hillary Step. The best efforts of Sherpa guides were not enough to save them.
Rishi Bhandari, secretary general of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, told PTI that one climber – identified as Sandeep – was extremely exhausted during the descent. “Sherpa guides worked really hard to save his life and rescue him from the Balcony to the South Col overnight, but the climber could not be saved,” Bhandari said.
Bhandari informed that another climber, Arun, summited Everest at around 5.30 pm on Thursday. “He had two experienced climbing Sherpa guides and they were trying to descend together, but he became exhausted at the Hillary Step, and our guides were not able to bring him back,” Bhandari said.
The twin tragedy comes amid successful Everest summits by several Indians, including 21-year-old Saanika Shah and the all-women Border Security Force (BSF) mountaineering team.
The climbing season started late this year as the Khumbu Icefall delayed route opening and load-ferrying operations.
Rope-fixing, a major step in enabling access to the summit, was completed on May 13, before the climbing season officially started.
Nepal authorities have so far issued 493 permits to scale Mount Everest. It’s the highest number of permits to be issued in a year since the mountain was first summitted successfully by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953.
