Rescue team recovers third climber’s body on Everest

Paresh Nath and Goutam Ghosh, two other members of the expedition team who remained missing since couple of days, have been located near the summit. Rescuers spotted the body of Paresh Nath around South Col. The cause of his death is yet to be ascertained. 

The bodies of both the mountaineers were found near the summit of 8,848 metre on the Mount Everest. They lost contact with the rest of the team since seven days.  

The missing climbers were part of a four member team, one of whom Subhash Pal died after he had collapsed while descending from the summit.  The fourth member, Sunita Hazra was rescued earlier in the week and flown to Nepal from the base camp by a helicopter. 

Apart from the Indian mountaineers, who went missing and later being spotted on the Everest, an Autralian and a Dutch national also died while scaling the world’s highest peak.  

Meanwhile, the body of Rajib Bhattacharya, who died while descending from the Dhaulagiri summit, is likely to be brought back to the city on Saturday. Post-mortem of his body was conducted at a hospital in Nepal on Friday. 

Sunita Hazra, the only survivor from the four- member expedition team will also return to the city on Saturday.  Another four-member team who had gone to the expedition earlier to the other four members have returned to the city on Friday after successfully climbing the Mount Everest.

South Col situated at an altitude of 8,000 metres marks the beginning of the “death zone”, notorious for its difficult terrain and thin air. The situation was further complicated as oxygen level in the area is low. 

The search operation could not be continued as there was too much of wind and snow fall was continuing. Around 400 people, including nearly 150 foreigners, have climbed the summit this season after two consecutive years of deadly disasters. Hundreds of climbers failed to climb the Everest in 2015 after an earthquake-triggered avalanche at base camp killing 18 people including many Sherpas. 

Despite of the life risk, the Everest continues to allure the mountaineers all over the world with Nepal issuing 289 permits to foreigners for this year’s spring climbing season, due to end soon.