Nepal suspends search after 16 swept away by avalanche

KATHMANDU: Dire weather has forced Nepal to suspend search operations after a Himalayan avalanche caused what is feared to be the worst expedition disaster in over a decade, the National Mountain Guide Association said on Tuesday (Sep 29).

Since the avalanche swept through the base camp of the 7,126m Himlung peak early on Sunday, four bodies have been recovered while 12 people remain missing.

"The conditions are very challenging," said Tul Singh Gurung, president of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association. "The search has been paused".

The 12 missing people are all Nepali workers preparing for later expeditions on Himlung, near the Chinese border, a popular destination for mountaineers looking to begin climbing 7,000m peaks.

Rescue team leader Mingma G Sherpa said he had little hope of finding the missing alive.

"Looking at the bodies recovered, it would be impossible for the rest to survive," he told AFP. "The scale of the avalanche is massive, we can go back when the snow melts a bit."

The team of eight mountain guides had reached the base camp on Sunday evening to begin the search, digging through more than 4m of snow.

Tents were buried under deep snow.

The bodies of two mountain guides were recovered on Sunday, and those of two kitchen staff were pulled out on Monday.

Nepal's worst mountaineering disasters in recent years occurred in 2014, when an avalanche killed 16 people on Everest, and in 2015, when an earthquake killed 18 people, also on Everest.

Nepal is still searching for bodies from devastating floods sparked by a mountain glacial collapse on Aug 26 that killed more than 1,400 people and left over 6,000 missing.

Heavy rain since Thursday has triggered other floods and landslides, killing at least 21 people, according to the national disaster agency.

Home to eight of the world's 14 highest peaks, Nepal relies heavily on mountaineering and trekking tourism.