Nepal Army team scales Everest
Nepal Army personnel, who scaled the world's highest peak on Monday, will be locating dead bodies and retrieve some of them on their way down.
A team of Nepal Army personnel along with Sherpa guides scaled Everest on Monday, base camp official said.
The team of five climbers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Kishor Adhikari, reached the summit at 10.05 a.m, according to Chief Liaison Officer Khimlad Gautam.
Captain Dipendra Singh Khatri, Captain Bishnu Bal Rai, army men Kishor Jabegu and Shankar Kuwar were other members of the Nepal Army team. Ongchhu Sherpa, Phurba Sherpa, Lakpa Sherpa and Phurba Dorchi Sherpa guided them to the summit.
The climbers were part of Nepal Army’s Mountain Clean-up Campaign mission, a regular campaign organized by Nepal Army. This time, the team is supposed to retrieve dead bodies and bring them down along with rubbish collected from the mountain.
The Nepal Army has been conducting annual cleanup campaigns on Everest since 2014. In the past, the campaigns have collected hundreds of tons of garbage from the mountain. “Our target is to retrieve upto four bodies from Everest alone,” Adhikari told Everest Chronicle in Kathmandu before leaving for the base camp.
“Nepal Army team will be locating climbers’ bodies on the mountain, some of which will be brought down from there,” said Gautam.
About 300 out of 11,000 climbers who made successful summit of the peak have died, according to the Himalayan Database. However, almost all dead bodies are never brought down. Mountaineers say bringing down the dead bodies from the mountains is a huge undertaking, which involves skilled as well as strong guides to drag down the bodies from the high up.
