According to Wangchu Sherpa, the managing director at Trekking Camp Nepal that managed the expedition, a team of six Sherpas retrieved the body of Paresh Chandra Nath above the camp IV. He had been attempting to climb Everest for a fourth time, after failing to reach the summit on previous attempts.
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Furtengi Sherpa, the operational manager of Seven Summit Treks, said that Dr Strydom had been battling illness as the final push began. “Losing him would be irreparable”.
Eric Arnold had reached the 29,035-foot summit on Friday, but then died on his descent of apparent altitude sickness near South Col, which sits at 26,300 feet.
Nath’s body was kept inside a tent at Camp 4 and it was uncertain if or when it would be brought down.
His widow, Sabita Nath, described the loss as “shattering”. But there was little time left for the search, with bad weather and monsoon rains expected to pick up at the end of May. “As soon as his body is back, we will try to get it home” to their village of Bankura, also in West Bengal.
Sherpas working to recover the body of the Melbourne woman Dr Marisa Strydom from Mount Everest are hopeful it will be in Kathmandu by the weekend, with her sister saying the situation is “looking positive”.
Strydom, 34, was nearing the 8850m summit when she fell ill with altitude sickness and had to turn back.
He said she was without oxygen for up to 20 hours because it took her so long to get down the mountain.
Her mother, Maritha Strydom, on Thursday thanked people who had pledged funds to help repatriate her daughter’s body to Australia. She posted in Facebook that their family has been humbled by the many pledges of assistance and tributes coming in for her daughter and support for Robert Gropel and the family, The Guardian reported.
Dr Gropel’s father Heinz said that he and his wife Pat were preparing to fly overseas if necessary to be with their son. “I’m just [too] devastated to communicate”.
However, they could not move ahead from the higher camp to locate another missing climber Goutam Ghosh whose body was also reportedly lying above 8,000 metres on the high mountain.
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Almost 40 climbers including an Indian woman have developed frostbite during this Himalayan climbing season a year ago, devastating quake caused the climbing season to be cancelled and climbing attempts were largely abandoned in 2014 after an avalanche above the base camp killed 16 Sherpa guides.
