In the statement, Mr Coster and his company said other people posted news about Dr Strydom’s death before they had a chance to contact the family, while the team had been busy helping Dr Gropel.
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Ms Strydom, a vegan, had climbed Everest in an effort to prove vegans could “do anything”. Between the cold, the altitude, and the sheer physical challenge, there are many who don’t make it off the mountain alive.
The 34-year-old’s husband, Melbourne vet Robert Gropel, was airlifted after also falling ill and has since been released from hospital.
Dutch climber Eric Arnold died on the same expedition.
All access points to the mountain were closed for two years after an avalanche in 2014 that killed 16 sherpas, and the massive Nepal quake last year in which 22 people died at Everest base camp – the deadliest accident on the mountain yet. Among them was the first combat amputee to climb the mountain, Marine Corps veteran Thomas Charles “Charlie” Linville, 30, who lost his leg to an IED in Iraq in 2011. The recent hikes this year marked the first time the summit was reached after two years.
Hours later, another member of the expedition team, Australian climber Maria Strydom, died after showing signs of altitude sickness, the Associated Press reported.
Mr Furtengi said the company was run by a group of brothers who were very experienced on Mount Everest and had regularly led successful climbs to the summit.
Everest has been crowded in the last few days, as numerous climbers attempt to take advantage of the same window of good weather to reach the summit, the wire service notes. Officials confirmed the Monash Business School professor died before she made it back to base camp.
Despite the risks and recent disasters, Everest’s allure remains undimmed, with Nepal issuing 289 permits to foreigners for this year’s spring climbing season.
Almost 40 climbers including an Indian woman have developed frostbite during this Himalayan climbing season which saw about 400 mountaineers summit the world’s highest peak, officials have said.
Two Indian climbers went missing above 8,000 meters on Everest, expedition organizers said.
“It is not clear what happened”.
On Thursday, crew member Phurba Sherpa (no relation to the journalist of the same name) fell to his death. A deadly natural disaster in 2015 and a fatal avalanche the year before had forced climbers to retreat, with last year’s climbing season completely abandoned.
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Before this month, Everest had not been scaled for two years after 16 guides died in an avalanche in 2014, followed by an quake killing 18 last year.
