Nepalese authorities said four human corpses and skeletons were found among the 11,000 kilograms of trash removed from Mount Everest and two other nearby peaks in this year’s annual clean-up.
Everest is often referred to as the world’s “highest garbage dump” due to the sheer amount of trash left by the nearly 35,000 annual visitors. It requires a yearly cleaning by the Nepalese army.
Starting on April 11, Nepalese authorities began their 55-day clean-up operation, which encompasses both Mount Everest and its sister peaks Lhotse and Nuptse. Authorities hoped to locate the bodies of five hikers who died summiting Everest so far this year, according to the BBC.
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Kenyan climber Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui, who was attempting to summit Everest without oxygen, and his Sherpa guide, Nawang, went missing in May. Kirui and Nawang reportedly vanished in the “death zone” above 26,000 feet where oxygen levels are dangerously low.
The day before, British climber Daniel Paul Paterson, and his Sherpa guide Pas Tenji Sherpa, also disappeared in the same place. The two had summited Everest, but on their descent, they “slipped and disappeared.”
“Eyewitnesses reported the incident took place between Summit Ridge and South Summit and some climbers were swept away in Kangshung Face,” Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions said in an Instagram post.
A week prior, the peak also claimed two Mongolian climbers’ lives.
They are among the suspected hundreds of corpses buried on the mountain.
The four discovered this year were given to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital’s forensic lab in Kathmandu.
Read it at 9 News
