Everest death toll rises
The unprecedented number of deaths that have occurred atop Mount Everest this climbing season has drawn attention to a distressing problem with overcrowding – and bad management on the part of trekking companies – with damning photos of the bedlam having gone viral. At least 11 people have died this spring while trying to complete the monumental climb of the highest peak on Earth, and many seasoned climbers blame the Nepali government’s willingness to issue so many climbing permits in exchange for money – this year they issued a record 381 permits, compared to 365 in 2018 and 289 in 2016 – as well as a lax attitude from mountaineering companies, who are too quick to give them out to inexperienced climbers. “You have to qualify to do the Ironman,” said climber Alan Arnette. “But you don’t have to qualify to climb the highest mountain in the world? What’s wrong with this picture?”
Due to excessive queues at the last 1,000 feet of the climb, many were waiting to progress to the next point longer than their oxygen supplies could hold out for, and so throngs of people desperately sidestepped around dead and collapsed comrades who had succumbed to exhaustion and/or a lack of oxygen. In an interview on 27 May, Director General of Nepal’s Department of Tourism Danduraj Ghimire claimed that the large number of deaths this year was not related to crowds, but because there were fewer good weather days for climbers to safely summit. He also said that the government was not inclined to change the number of permits.
Indeed, bad weather following Cyclone Fani, which had hit India and Bangladesh just days before, also did nothing to improve the odds of the some-600 people who had prepared to embark on the climb this season.
Meanwhile, other Nepali officials blamed trekking companies for the large number of deaths, saying that they were responsible for safety on the mountain. Earlier this year, corruption among trekking companies in Nepal received heavy coverage and, amidst this, government investigators uncovered problems with some of the oxygen systems used by climbers, with some leaking and exploding.
With Visit Nepal Year happening next year – which expects to pull in around two million tourists – let’s hope that more regulations and tighter controls around mountaineering permits are introduced by the Nepali Government to prevent such a tragic number of avoidable fatalities from occurring again.