AFP
Kathmandu
A 51-year-old Austrian climber has died on an expedition to summit Nepal’s Manaslu peak, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, an official said yesterday.
The climber, part of a team of 14, was descending after a successful summit of the 8,156m (26,759ft) tall mountain on Thursday when he died.
“An Austrian climber died on his way back near Camp 4 late Thursday. We do not have details about the cause of death,” said Nepal tourism official,
Gyanendra Shrestha.
Shrestha said that an emergency rescue team had airlifted a French climber from the same team to a lower camp on the
same day.
Nepal had granted permits to 106 climbers this autumn season for Manaslu peak.
More than 40 mountaineers have summited successfully but two leading operators cancelled their expeditions, citing waist-deep snow and exposure to avalanches en route to
the peak.
The risks are higher than normal at the moment because of regular aftershocks from a massive earthquake in April that killed nearly 8,900 people in the Himalayan nation, increasing the risk of avalanches.
Japanese climber Nobukazu Kuriki, the only person trying to summit Everest this year, returned to basecamp after a failed attempt to summit last weekend.
However, Kuriki, who lost nine fingers to frostbite in 2012 on Everest, planned to begin his second attempt to summit this week.