Dead Bodies Exposed Amid Melting Glaciers in Mount Everest

Tourist photographs Mt Everest. Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar, file.
Tourist photographs Mt Everest. Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar, file.
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Dead Bodies Exposed Amid Melting Glaciers in Mount Everest

Tourist photographs Mt Everest. Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar, file.
Tourist photographs Mt Everest. Reuters: Navesh Chitrakar, file.

Expedition operators are concerned at the number of climber bodies that are becoming exposed on Mount Everest as its glaciers melt. Nearly 300 mountaineers have died on the peak since the first ascent attempt and two-thirds of bodies are thought still to be buried in the snow and ice.

Bodies are being removed on the Chinese side of the mountain, to the north, as the spring climbing season starts. According to the BBC, more than 4,800 climbers have scaled the highest peak on Earth.

Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said: "Because of global warming, the ice sheet and glaciers are fast melting and the dead bodies that remained buried all these years are now becoming exposed. We have brought down dead bodies of some mountaineers who died in recent years, but the old ones that remained buried are now coming out."

A government officer, who worked as a liaison officer on Everest, added: "I myself have retrieved around 10 dead bodies in recent years from different locations on Everest and clearly more and more of them are emerging now."

Officials with the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal (EOAN) said they were bringing down all ropes from the higher camps of Everest and Lhotse mountains this climbing season, but dealing with dead bodies was not as easy.

They point at Nepal's law that requires government agencies' involvement when dealing with bodies and said that was a challenge.

"This issue needs to be prioritized by both the government and the mountaineering industry. If they can do it on the Tibet side of Everest, we can do it here as well,” Prresident of EOAN Dambar Parajuli said.

In 2017, the hand of a dead mountaineer appeared above the ground at Camp 1. Expedition operators said they deployed professional climbers of the Sherpa community to move the body.

The same year, another body appeared on the surface of the Khumbu Glacier. Also known as the Khumbu Icefall, this is where most dead bodies have been surfacing in recent years, mountaineers say.



Syria Seeks EU Help to Battle Massive Wildfires

FILE : A fire burns at a forest in Latakia province, Syria in this handout released by SANA on October 9, 2020. SANA/Handout via REUTERS
FILE : A fire burns at a forest in Latakia province, Syria in this handout released by SANA on October 9, 2020. SANA/Handout via REUTERS
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Syria Seeks EU Help to Battle Massive Wildfires

FILE : A fire burns at a forest in Latakia province, Syria in this handout released by SANA on October 9, 2020. SANA/Handout via REUTERS
FILE : A fire burns at a forest in Latakia province, Syria in this handout released by SANA on October 9, 2020. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

Syria’s minister of emergencies and disaster management on Tuesday requested support from the European Union to battle wildfires that have swept through a vast stretch of forested land.

The fires have been burning for six days, with Syrian emergency crews struggling to bring them under control amid strong winds and severe drought.

Neighboring countries Jordan, Lebanon and Türkiye have already dispatched firefighting teams to assist in the response.

“We asked the European Union for help in extinguishing the fires,” minister Raed al-Saleh said on X, adding Cyprus was expected to send aid on Tuesday, AFP reported.

“Fear of the fires spreading due to strong winds last night prompted us to evacuate 25 families to ensure their safety without any human casualties,” he added.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) office in Syria, the fires impacted “some 5,000 persons, including displacements, across 60 communities.”

An estimated 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) of forest and farmland -- more than three percent of Syria’s forest cover -- have burned, OCHA told AFP.

At least seven towns in Latakia province have been evacuated as a precaution.

Efforts to extinguish the fires have been hindered by “rugged terrain, the absence of firebreaks, strong winds, and the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance”, Saleh said.

With man-made climate change increasing the likelihood and intensity of droughts and wildfires worldwide, Syria has also been battered by heatwaves and low rainfall.

In June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said Syria had “not seen such bad climate conditions in 60 years.”