Four die on Mount Everest

[Rhiannon12866]

Source: CNN

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- Four people died while coming down the southern slope of the mountain during the weekend after reaching Mount Everest's 8848-meter (29,028 foot) summit, officials said.

The victims have been identified as Ebehard Schaaf, 61, a German medical doctor; Sriya Shah, 33, a Nepali-born Canadian woman; Song Wondin, a 44-year-old man from South Korea; and Wen Ryi Ha, 55, of China, according to officials with the tourism and civil aviation ministry and at the base of the mountain.

"Climbers climbing down the mountain have said that they have seen the body of the Korean," said Tilakram Pandey, of the tourism and civil aviation ministry, by phone from the base of the mountain.

The Korean had earlier been reported missing. There were reports of a Nepali missing as well, but those reports could not be verified, Pandey said.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/world/asia/everest-deaths/index.html?eref=igoogledmn_topstories

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More:

Everest weekend death toll reaches 4


KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Climbers have reported seeing another body on Mount Everest, raising the death toll to four for one of the worst days ever on the world's highest mountain.

Nepali mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha said Tuesday that the body of Chinese climber Ha Wenyi was spotted not far from where three other climbers died. They were part of what was a "traffic jam" by Everest standards — an estimated 150 climbers who rushed to use a brief window of good weather to try to reach the top Friday and Saturday.

Wenyi and the other victims — German doctor Eberhard Schaaf, Nepal-born Canadian Shriya Shah and South Korean mountaineer Song Won-bin — died Saturday on their way down from the 8,850-meter (35,035-foot) summit. They are believed to have suffered exhaustion and altitude sickness, Shrestha said.

Shrestha says a Nepalese Sherpa guide who had been reported missing is safe and has reached the base camp. Shrestha says the guide was separated from his group and did not have communications equipment.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-05-22/Everest-climbers/55124830/1

[JI7]

1. i hope they enjoyed the sight , i would like to go there one day

i don't think i'm strong enough to climb up there. but i would like to get close to the mountains.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I'd love to see it in person, but have no wish to climb it.

My fear of heights notwithstanding, LOL, it just sounds dangerous as hell, obviously. I hope that the members of this party got tremendous satisfaction from achieving what must have been their dream, but, personally, I don't think anything's worth losing your life.

[Voice for Peace]

3. I hope it was worth it for them, sincerely

I don't think I've ever been higher (except in a plane) than
about 10,000 feet. The view was astonishing. I can't imagine
being at 35,000. What can you see from there, on a clear day?

EDIT just answered my own question, thanks Google!

http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen2/full22.html

[Rhiannon12866]

4. OMG! Spectacular! That's quite a find!

My parents have a framed photo of Mt. Everest over the couch in the TV room. They've been within sight of it, and that would be fine with me. They've traveled a lot. I'm not a big fan of flying, but given the choice of seeing it by plane or climbing to the top for the view, I know which I'd choose.

[liberal N proud]

11. There, now I don't have to do all that climbing.

[SWTORFanatic]

12. IMHO, an even more beautiful view is from the top of k2 (second tallest mountain)

Which is much more difficult than Everest to climb because it's much steeper and in a more isolated place... about 4% of people die on Everest (compared to those who reach the summit) versus about 19% of people who die on K2 (compared to those who reach the summit). Anyway, look at that shadow! (it reaches deep into China from Nepal I believe).



http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSnhU6dbPkX80blwNaZ3CtmrV2CPc5uTEoqD8aTZSJ9ryQgi6g0wWdQJ--QOQ

About the death #s consider some people never try for the summit (some turn back. some are high altitude porters who don't try to reach the summit itself just help the climbers get real close to the top), so they are a little overinflated... still super dangerous though!

[Voice for Peace]

26. wow, amazing photo

[awoke_in_2003]

13. "What can you see from there?"

Russia

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Toronto Star: Toronto woman dies on Mount Everest descent

As the tour helicopter circled Mount Everest, the 9-year-old turned to her father and asked an innocent question, putting her on a path that would ultimately lead to her death:

“If people climb it, why are we looking at it from up here?”

Over the next 24 years, Shriya Shah-Klorfine of Toronto dreamed of scaling the world’s tallest peak, striving to be one of the few Canadian women to reach the top. On Saturday, tired and jubilant after a seven-week trek, the 33-year-old unfurled Canada’s flag at the summit.

But hours later, the lifelong dream turned tragic. Shah-Klorfine, along with three other climbers, died on her descent. Reports on Monday suggested she collapsed from exhaustion and altitude sickness.

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1181742--mississauga-woman-among-three-climbers-who-died-on-mount-everest




Toronto resident Shriya Shah-Klorfine, 33, a candidate in the last provincial election for the riding of Mississauga East-Cooksville, died during her descent from Mount Everest.

[adigal]

18. Helicopters can barely fly as high as the base camp, about 19,000 feet, so I think this story

is just that - made up. There is not enough air for their blades.

[closeupready]

6. In a free society, you can't keep people from killing themselves.

Personally, I have mixed emotions about these stories.

I feel sad for their loved ones, but angry that they risked their lives and lost. And for what?

Really selfish, IMHO.

[queenjane]

7. People should follow their dreams, even at a risk. How is this selfish?

Yes, this is a loss for their loved ones, but it would also be a loss if these people had died in a traffic accident. I'm terrified of heights, so ascending Everest isn't something I yearn to do, but I can emphasize with others' yearning to do so.

[closeupready]

9. It's a frivolous endeavor with very high risks of injury or death.

If you have no family or loved ones, then I suppose as a person whose very life itself is 'self-ish' you can at least be considered principled.

[awoke_in_2003]

14. So is riding a motorcycle...

I have great life insurance, just in case

[closeupready]

17. Do you wear a helmet?

?

[awoke_in_2003]

19. Yes...

But in reality, a helmet is only going to ensure an open coffin funeral, and I plan on cremation, anyway.

[bhikkhu]

15. Everybody dies, and what's not frivolous?

My dad died from cancer at 55, with a whole list of things he wanted to do when he retired.

To work your life away out of duty or whatever, and not do the things you dream about - I can admire that in a way but its not something I would recommend..

[closeupready]

16. What about your children?

Or your wife?

[bhikkhu]

22. Everybody dies, and if you look at the statistics even Everest is pretty low risk

A few deaths on the mountain make the news, but thousands of safe "summits" go unannounced.

You can stay home and safe and put off life out of fear of dying, and call that "duty", or sacrifice for the sake of family, but I'd rather see people live well. Life is short!

[closeupready]

27. Older climbers have a 1 in 4 risk of dying - that's BBC's estimate.

Meanwhile, from earlier this month:

>>Injured UK soldiers abandon Mount Everest charity climb

A group of injured UK soldiers has been forced to abandon an attempt to climb Mount Everest because of safety fears.

The charity Walking with the Wounded said unseasonably warm weather had increased the risk of avalanches.

Expedition manager Martin Hewitt said he was "gutted", but to carry on would risk "certain serious injury and potential loss of life".
----------------
In his blog, Mr Hewitt, 31, said the Khumbu icefall - already one of the most treacherous parts of an Everest ascent - was at its most dangerous for more than a decade.<<

http://nepalisamajuk.com/news/813-injured-uk-soldiers-abandon-mount-everest-charity-climb.html

[Throckmorton]

38. My wife died of cancer at 39.

Both of my children lost there mother at 7 and 9.

Follow your dreams, tomorrow is not guarantied to anyone.

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain"

Frank Herbert, Dune

[Coyote_Bandit]

20. So.................?

Single folks and others without spouses or children are selfish?

One of the most generous people I know is a 50-something woman who never married or had children. She spent some time working with the Peace Corps before joining another humanitarian organization. She has spent most of the last 30 years working in a variety of third world nations teaching the residents subsistence farming and a variety of literacy and work skills to better their lives. Not exactly the stuff of selfishness.

Are you jealous of unattached single folks? Or perhaps, on the flip side, resentful of family obligations? Or do you simply not realize that you are advancing a sterotypical bigotted view of single folks?

[closeupready]

21. We're really taking this off-topic now.

nt

[Coyote_Bandit]

23. We are known here by our words

You said:
"If you have no family or loved ones, then I suppose as a person whose very life itself is 'self-ish' you can at least be considered principled."

I think the inference is clear and the question is fair.

I have little tolerance for bigotry in any of its many forms.

[closeupready]

24. Ok.

You consider that bigotry. Got it. Cheers.

[theHandpuppet]

25. And all the while, turning Everest into a trash pit

That type of desecration, motivated by purely personal thrill-seeking, is something that is hard to admire about those who aim to "conquer" Everest.

[closeupready]

29. Yes, undoubtedly why areas like Mustang and Bhutan are closed

to mountain climbing and cross-country expeditions. People (i.e., Westerners) will likely defy those prohibitions. Nonetheless, the filth at Everest and other much-climbed peaks shows that it goes hand in hand with large-scale tourism.

[frylock]

31. ^this^

it sickens me to see all the trash on that mountain, and of course it's riddled with corpses as well.

[wordpix]

41. agreed re: the trash pit & then you have to climb by dead bodies on the way, in a traffic jam

of climbers.

Doesn't sound like a good time to me. I'll take a wilderness trail up a mountain in North America without oxygen any day over that.

[obamanut2012]

8. The least deadly part is summiting

Most people die on the way down.

And, most people on Everest have no business being there. They just had enough money to pay an expedition company. Very few companies are run by people who put customer safety above summitting percentages.

[mainer]

28. Interesting. I didn't know the descent was the most dangerous part.

Never would have guessed.

[treestar]

30. Why is that?

Interesting, I was reading through this thread thinking they made it up, so why couldn't they make it down?

[Posteritatis]

35. A few reasons

One is that a lot of them are less cautious at that point. There's probably a lot of caution against complacency in that kind of situation, but if you take "it's all downhill from here" a little too much to heart you can get careless.

Past that most treacherous surfaces tend to be more dangerous on the way down - if you slip and fall forward climbing up an incline you aren't likely to go as wrong as if you were hiking downhill.

Also, just the environment itself. The top parts of Everest are well into the death zone; by the time someone hits the top they're already well into the realm of running on reserves and probably multiple kinds of exhausted. If you burn out a thousand feet too far up, that's it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

37. Also, nightfall is a factor.

IIRC, they leave for the final summit push around 2 am to make it back before dark. If they haven't made it past a certain point by a designated time, they have to turn back. Sometimes they don't follow the plan.

Not to mention if weather hits while descending what are you going to do?

[obamanut2012]

39. Yup, all of these and a few more

Nightfall, altitude sickness and edema, being exhausted and confused and slagged by lack of oxygen.

As you said, it's literally the Death Zone, and even with oxygen, you are dying bit by but.

[wordpix]

42. the climbers are tired, they make bad decisions, the weather goes from good to bad...lots of reasons

and they still need to work hard to get down due to the elevation, ice falls, deep snow, technical maneuvering...

[AngryAmish]

10. Thinning the herd...

[Roland99]

32. Everest grew? 35,035 feet??

[Posteritatis]

36. They rounded the metric height. (nt)

[CubicleGuy]

33. This is why...

... Google Earth was invented.

[octothorpe]

40. Can't wait until google streetview makes it up there.

[bikebloke]

34. Everest was hiding behind clouds when I flew into Kathmandu.

I trekked the Anapurna circuit. Getting above 18,000 feet the air is bloody thin. A few steps...pant...a few more steps...pant some more.