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Nepal's Sherpa community is confronting a dark tragedy after at least 12 guides were killed by an avalanche that swept down a climbing route on Mt Everest. A search was ongoing for at least three more guides still missing following the deadliest ever single day on the world's highest mountain.

 

Officials said the men were killed after the avalanche struck at around 6.30am on Friday as they were laying fixed ropes for other climbers. Rescue workers struggled to pull their bodies from mounds of snow and ice after they were struck just about Camp 2. Two men, who survived but suffered injuries, were lifted from the ice debris and flown by helicopter to Kathmandu.

 

A spokesman for Nepal's Tourism Ministry, Mohan Krishna Sapkota, told the AFP news agency that all the climbers involved were of Nepali origin and had been preparing the route ahead of the main spring climbing season, which starts in a matter of days.

 

"The sherpa guides were carrying up equipment and other necessities for climbers when the disaster happened," he said.

 

Friday's deaths easily surpassed the previous highest number of deaths on Everest. That occurred on May 11 1996 when eight foreign climbers were killed in bad weather, an event that featured in journalist Jon Krakauer's book Into Thin Air. Six Nepalese guides died in an avalanche in 1970.

 

 

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Nepalese guides on Mount Everest have decided to abandon this year's climbing season, to honour 16 colleagues killed in an avalanche last week.

 

The decision throws the plans of hundreds of foreign mountaineers into chaos, with many of them waiting in base camp after paying tens of thousands of dollars to scale the world's highest peak.

 

The Sherpas perform essential tasks on the 8,848-metre (29,029ft) mountain, carrying equipment and food, as well as repairing ladders and fixing ropes to reduce risks for their clients.

 

"We had a long meeting this afternoon and we decided to stop our climbing this year to honour our fallen brothers. All Sherpas are united in this," one local guide, Tulsi Gurung, told AFP from base camp.

 

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How many of those climbers would be able to climb Everest without the Sherpa's going a head doing all the hard work, carrying all their shit up for them, carrying up the oxygen bottles. I had no idea until I watch the doco Everest - Beyond the Limit. The Sherpa's do all the work and sometimes will go up 3 or 4 times.

 

I understand they get paid well compared Neapalese wages but when you hear that Western Guides get paid triple yet don't do half the work and half the risk of the sherpa's really is that fair????

 

I THINK NOT

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I had the privilege of meeting Sir Edmund Hillary in Shanghai when he did a talk and book signing for our top executives. A member of my team was asked to help him haul some books up to his room.

 

I was horrified to hear that the team member said "it's not my job" and walked off. Typical mainlander mentality.

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