The bodies of three French mountaineers found in Nepal
(Kathmandu) The bodies of three French mountaineers missing since October 26 after an avalanche in the Everest region have been found in Nepal, Nepalese police announced on Monday.
Published Nov 8, 2021Agence France-Presse“The professional rescue team transported the bodies of the three missing French mountaineers to Lukla (south-eastern Nepal), Rishi Raj Dhakal, inspector, told AFP. and Spokesperson for the Solukhumbu District Police Bureau.
“The police office has completed all the legal procedures it is required to do here,” the policeman continued. "The bodies will now be transported to Kathmandu for an autopsy."
Identification
The bodies were discovered "roughly in the same area where the search was conducted" for the three missing Frenchmen, said the policeman.
Ang Norbu Sherpa, head of the rescue team, confirmed that he had "brought three bodies back to Lukla from the area near the slope of the north face of the Mingmo Eiger".
On the other hand, he refused to confirm that it was indeed the missing French people.
“We cannot confirm the identity of the bodies, because we are not authorized to do so,” he explained. "There is a separate process."
After a two-day hiatus, the search resumed on Friday to find Louis Pachoud, Gabriel Miloche and Thomas Arfi, aged 27 to 34, who had been missing since October 26 following an avalanche during their ascent of the west face of the Mingbo Eiger, which culminates at 6070 meters above sea level.
French rescuers
France sent a team of 14 people to Nepal on Friday, made up of gendarmes, experts and an avalanche dog to lend a hand to the Nepalese guides during the week. -end.
This operation, organized by the Ministry's crisis center with the French Embassy in Nepal, was implemented by the High Mountain Gendarmerie Platoon (PGHM).
Members of the National Mountaineering Excellence Group (GEAN), an elite formation of the French Federation of Alpine and Mountain Clubs (FFCAM), the mountaineers were part of a team that arrived at the end of September in the Khumbu and Everest, with the aim of climbing various peaks culminating at 5000 and 6000 m, south of Ama Dablam (6814 m).
Initial reconnaissance had made it possible to locate their tracks up to an altitude of 5900 m, when they had apparently turned around a hundred meters before the summit.
According to the available information, they were "thrown at the foot of the face" by the avalanche, i.e. a fall of "several hundred meters", FFCAM president Nicolas Raynaud told AFP on Tuesday. .
The last telephone contact with the young people from their bivouac dates back to October 26, according to the Federation.
Perilous season
Nepal reopened its doors in September to foreign mountaineers, exempting vaccinated people from quarantine.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the country's tourism industry of 30 million people to a complete halt last year, devastating its heavily dependent economy.
Everest, the highest peak in the world, had a record mountaineering season in the spring of 2019, with 885 people successfully climbing it.
The Himalayas attract mountaineers from all over the world, most of them during spring, a period of good weather from the end of April to the end of May.
But experts say the September-November season is more dangerous due to high winds and lower temperatures, and the world's tallest mountains typically see only a small number of climbers risking the ascent at this time.
