Kathmandu: An Indian-origin climber and his Nepali Sherpa guide were killed after an avalanche struck their tent at Camp 3 of Mount Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest peak, in Nepal.
Dhruva Jyoti Guha, who lived in Germany, and Fursemba Sherpa had moved towards a higher camp from Camp 2 despite adverse weather conditions and were caught in the avalanche on Saturday night, Mohan Lamsal, managing director of Makalu Adventure, which organised the expedition, said, as reported by PTI.
Fursemba Sherpa was an experienced mountain guide from Nepal’s Makalu.
Their bodies were found buried under around seven feet of snow when a rescue team reached Camp 3, Lamsal said.
“A heavy avalanche fell on their tent and both the climbers were buried in the snow,” he said.
There were six other climbers from the expedition company, Lamsal said, but they decided to retreat from Camp 2 because of the bad weather and are safe. Guha and Fursemba, however, had attempted to move higher despite the conditions.
“The two who made the attempt in a hurry despite the bad weather condition met with the accident,” Lamsal said.
The rescue team was sent to Camp 3 after the two climbers stopped communicating with expedition organisers. Their last communication was received on Saturday night.
Efforts were underway to bring the bodies down to the mountain’s base camp. From there, they are expected to be flown to Kathmandu.
The two deaths have taken the number of fatalities on Mount Manaslu during the current climbing season to four.
A Singaporean climber and a Nepali guide had earlier died in separate incidents on the mountain, the expedition organiser said.
Mount Manaslu is 8,163 metres (26,781 feet) high and is located in Nepal’s Gorkha district in the Himalayas, around 65 km east of the Annapurna range. The name Manaslu is derived from a Sanskrit word meaning “mountain of the spirit,”.