All 18 climbers are dead: Police (news upate)

October 25, 2005
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The state-run Radio Nepal said Tuesday morning that all 18 climbers—including seven French mountaineers and their 11 staff—have died in an avalanche that hit Mount Kang Guru region last week.

The radio quoted Western Regional Police Office in Pokhara as saying that bodies of all seven French climbers have been identified. Bodies of Nepali support staff is yet to be identified, the state-run radio said.

Meanwhile, talking to Nepalnews, president of Himalayan Rescue Assocaition (HRA) Bikram Neupane—who returned to Kathmandu Monday after visiting northern district of Manang—said a search team in the region has just informed the Association of seeing a body.

It was not known whether the body was of a French national or a Nepali.

Neupane said it would take at least three to four hours for the members of search team to reach the place where the body is located.

Earlier, Deputy Insepctor General of Police in Pokhara, Sher Bahadur Shah, said they had given up hope of finding any survivor and that a search operation was underway to recover bodies of the mountaineers and bring them down to Pokhara. He said local villagers were assisting a nearly three dozen-member strong search team to recover the bodies.

DIG Shah said the search team is equipped with satellite phone and that the government will send a helicopter to bring bodies down as soon as they hear from the search team.

The French expedition, led by renowned mountaineer Daniel Stolzenberg, was on its way to climb 6,981 metre-high Mount Kanguru in Manang district when it was hit by an avalanche last Thursday.

A search team has already rescued four Nepali porters who survived the avalanche but said it hasn’t heard anything from rest of the expedition members.