Mount Everest avalanche leaves at least 12 Nepalese climbers dead!

[link to www.theguardian.com]

An avalanche on Mount Everest early on Friday has killed at least 12 local climbers and left several others injured in what is likely to prove one of the most lethal accidents in recent history on the world's highest peak.

Officials said 12 bodies had so far been recovered and ferried to base camp, while a further three injured climbers were being taken to Kathmandu. As many as four climbers are still thought to be missing.

An injured survivor told his relatives that the path up the mountain was unstable just before the avalanche. As soon as the avalanche hit, rescuers and climbers rushed to help.

Reports suggest a massive avalanche low on the 29,000ft (8,848m) mountain caught a work party of local sherpas as they prepared the classic South Col route – followed by the peak's first ascensionists in 1953 – for fee-paying western climbers.

Sherpa guides had gone early in the morning to fix the ropes which will guide and safeguard hundreds of climbers, when the avalanche hit them. Reports said the accident had occurred between base camp and Camp 1 in the chaotic and extremely dangerous ice fall. The ice fall is composed of a steep glacier which fractures as it slides over cliffs, forming massive crevasses, and sherpas have to find and maintain a new route through every year.

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