More Avalanches in Nepal

Avalanches hamper Nepal survivor search

Small avalanches hampered the search for Nepali porters and guides missing for six days after a devastating Himalayan storm, officials said, as rescue crews began to scale back the hunt for survivors of a disaster that killed 40 people.

Nearly 600 people have been rescued from the popular hiking trail around Annapurna, the world's tenth highest peak, after it was hit by unseasonable snow and avalanches brought by the tail end of a cyclone that swept through neighbouring India.

"Today is the last day of the search and rescue operation," said Keshav Pandey of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal. "After this we can only hope that those who are missing will establish contact with us or their families.

"We don't think that any tourist is missing now. I am getting reports that some local porters and tour guides who were on the trek have not been traced so far," said Pandey, whose team has rescued more than 250 people.

The dead include Canadian, Indian, Israeli, Japanese, Nepalese, Polish and Slovak trekkers. Survivors said many people perished trying to descend in freezing whiteout conditions from the highest pass of the 240-km trail around Annapurna, which offers dramatic views of crags and hamlets.

Searchers retrieved another body on Monday, taking the tally of deaths to 40.

"Army rescuers dug out the body of an Israeli tourist from snow today," Baburam Bhandari, chief of Nepal's Mustang district, one of the worst hit, said.

Nepalese army and private helicopters have brought back survivors from parts of the trail that are more than 5,000m high.

Soldiers fanned out through some of the most treacherous terrain, where helicopters cannot land, including around the glacial lake of Tilicho, about four days' trek from the main circuit, and the distant villages of Naar and Phu near Tibet.

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"Rigorous efforts are being made to reach seven people who still remain missing in Naar and Phu," said Devendra Lamichhane, the chief administrator of Nepal's Manang region.

"Small avalanches are still continuing in Manang, making search and rescue operations difficult."

The incident was Nepal's second major mountain disaster this year, after 16 guides died in an avalanche in April on Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.

Tourism Minister Dipak Amatya said he was determined to overhaul adventure sports tourism in Nepal, and ensure it never again faced a similar tragedy.

"There is no point blaming the hostile weather for the disaster," he said. "I blame our entire mechanism because it is our responsibility to protect tourists and Nepali citizens."

Amatya's ministry is working on a plan to build more than 200 shelters on all the trekking routes in Nepal, to ensure every tourist finds a shelter within a distance of 3 km.

Nepal is home to eight of the world's 14 highest mountains. Income from tourism, including permit fees for trekkers, who made up more than 12 per cent of its 800,000 tourists in 2013, accounts for four per cent of its economy.

Article from www.stuff.co.nz

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Sherpa hid behind rock

Over 150 climbers rescued after deadly Nepal avalanche

Workers using helicopters and battling waist-deep snow rescued over 150 people including foreign trekkers left stranded in Nepal's Himalayas on Thursday (local time), two days after a major snowstorm that triggered avalanches and killed more than 30 people.

Local officials said 23 bodies have been found on the popular Annapurna circuit trekking route, while five climbers who were staying at a mountain base camp when it was hit by an avalanche could not be found and were presumed dead.

Three Nepalese yak herders were also killed when severe weather triggered by the tail end of Cyclone Hudhud hit the picturesque Annapurna region in central Nepal.

But the majority of victims were tourists --among them Canadians, Israelis and Indians -- and their guides and porters.

NO KIWIS AMONG DEAD

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) this morning said New Zealand's Honorary Consul in Nepal still had no indication of any New Zealanders killed or injured as a result of the blizzard.

New Zealand-based Trekking Adventures owner Ann Young said two New Zealanders were walking out of the mountains yesterday, and another was on her way home after being evacuated by jeep.

"We have made a lot of progress today: we have airlifted 154 people to safety, including 76 foreigners," said Ganesh Rai, the police official in charge of the rescue effort.

As dusk fell, strong winds picked up in the affected districts of Manang and Mustang, making it too risky for pilots to continue scanning the snow-blanketed slopes for signs of victims, officials said.

Thousands of people head to the Annapurna region every October, when weather conditions are usually clear and cool, and 168 foreign tourists were registered to hike in the affected districts this week.

Israelis Yakov Megreli and Maya Ora were 10 days into their trek when the storm hit, forcing them to stop overnight at a freezing teashop.

"We tried not to sleep so that we wouldn't get hypothermia. It was very frightening, awful," Megreli, 24, told AFP.

"All the time I thought I was going to die," said Ora, 21, before Nepalese troops found the pair and brought them to a military hospital in Kathmandu to be treated for frostbite.

A US hiker told AFP he sought refuge at a Manang guesthouse, along with 21 tourists and four Nepalese guides and porters, after finding himself in the grip of the snowstorm.

"We left our hotel in Thorong Phedi at 6.30am on Tuesday, with hotel staff telling us it was totally safe to go up," said Max Weinstein, 18, by phone from the guesthouse in Thorong High Camp, at an altitude of 4800 metres.

As he and a 66-year-old woman he was trekking with hiked on, visibility worsened as more and more snow began to come down.

"The snow kept getting heavier, we couldn't see anything, and soon these big rocks began falling down," he said.

LEAPED BEHIND ROCKS

A group of seven Canadian trekkers and their Nepali guides were near the high-altitude village of Phu, 150 km northwest of Kathmandu, when the avalanche struck.

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Four were killed immediately. The group's guide, Kusang Sherpa, described the sound of snow splitting above and said he and three of the trekkers were able to leap behind the rock.

"I thought it was the last day in my life," Sherpa said after being evacuated to Kathmandu. "I was lucky that I survived with my three clients."

The snow did not reach the boulder, but they stayed there for about 20 minutes until they were sure the avalanche had stabilised, then walked an hour to a village called Kang, where they telephoned for help and were picked up by a helicopter.

NO WEATHER WARNING

Weinstein said he would never have headed out on Tuesday if he had been given prior warnings.

"Whoever is in charge of communicating weather warnings to trekkers has been totally negligent," he said.

Keshav Pandey, vice president of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal(TAAN), an industry body, said the Himalayan nation has no warning systems in place to inform trekkers of severe weather conditions.

"We don't expect this kind of storm in October, but we also have no warning system to help us prepare for it," Pandey told AFP.

Rescuers were searching for two Slovakian mountaineers and three Nepalese guides who went missing after an avalanche struck teams stationed at the base camp of 8,167-metre Mount Dhaulagiri on Tuesday night.

"We are running helicopter missions to try and find them, but we can find no sign of them, we presume they are dead," said police official Rai.

Rescuers have retrieved the bodies of three Israelis, three Poles, one Vietnamese, one Slovak and seven Nepalese, while the bodies of four Canadians and three Indians remain buried in snow, Rai said, correcting an earlier statement that misidentified one of the victims as a German.

The nationality of three others found was unknown, he said.

At least seven of the hikers lost their lives in an avalanche in Manang and 16 others were buried by the snowstorm in neighbouring Mustang, according to a local official.

The region has seen unusually heavy snowfall this week sparked by Cyclone Hudhud, which slammed into India's east coast over the weekend.

The latest disaster follows the deaths of 16 people in an avalanche on Mount Everest in April that forced an unprecedented shutdown of the world's highest peak.

Scores of expeditions were cancelled after the avalanche tore through a group of sherpas who were hauling gear up the mountain for their foreign clients.

The effective closure of the 8,848-metre mountain for the season dealt a huge blow to impoverished Nepal, which relies heavily on tourism revenues from climbing and trekking.

Article from www.stuff.co.nz

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