NEPAL: Climbing Disaster Highlights Lack of Rescue Measures (1)

By Kunda Dixit Reprint | | Print |

Kunda Dixit

KATHMANDU, Nov 22 1994 (IPS) - The worst disaster in Nepal’s mountaineering history that took the lives of 11 climbers last week has raised questions about safety and rescue procedures in the country.

Ironically, the accident happened on the 6,091 metre-high Mt Picnaq, which is regarded as climbers as one of the easiest mountains to climb in that height category in the Nepal Himalaya.

The climbers failed to return to base camp after reaching the top on Nov. 13. But it took four days for a helicopter search and rescue mission to be mounted from Kathmandu, 200 kms away, because of elections in the country.

The climbing expedition was from the German Alpine Club (DAV) and consisted of nine Germans, one Swiss and one Nepali guide.

The party appears to have been caught in a snow slide at an altitude of 5,300 metres. The bodies were located on Sunday after a three-day search by helicopter. All 11 were found at the foot of the mountain entangled in rope, ice and snow.

“Everybody was killed in the first few seconds,” Sigmund Rotheingshofer of DAV told reporters here Tuesday. “They were swept 80 metres down a snow slope and then had a free fall on rock towers about 600 metres below.”

Rotheingshofer, who was in a search party that found the bodies, said the climbers seem to have been on three ropes descending zigzag down the mountain when the entire slope gave way beneath them.

The disaster has received much media attention in Germany, but Rotheingshofer does not think it will affect the mountaineering and trekking business in Nepal in the long-term.

Others are not so sure, saying the accident has exposed a serious lack of emergency rescue procedures for trekkers and mountaineers in Nepal.

So far, emergency mountain rescue in Nepal has been left totally up to the private tour groups, and they are at the mercy of the helicopter operators,” says Padam Singh Ghale, a Nepali mountain guide.

The deregulation of Nepal’s domestic airline industry has allowed a flock of new helicopter charters to come up in recent years that use Russian Mi-17 helicopters fitted with special engines that allow them to fly up to 5,500 metres.