Bodies of five Russian climbers retrieved from Mt Dhaulagiri in Nepal after 10 days

MYAGDI (Nepal): The bodies of five Russian climbers, who died on Mount Dhaulagiri on October 7, have been retrieved and flown to Kathmandu in a helicopter. Rescuers were able to retrieve the bodies of climbers from 6,900 meters on Wednesday morning which were later flown to Kathmandu for post-mortem.

“Multiple attempts were made to retrieve the body from the mountains but had failed. Within the duration of 10 days, three attempts were made to retrieve the bodies. Today, on October 16, a helicopter of Altitude Air successfully retrieved all the five bodies. The bodies were brought down to the Base Camp and then the bodies are flown to Kathmandu in the afternoon after 2pm (Local Time). Upon reaching Kathmandu, the bodies are being taken to the Tribhuvan University- Teaching Hospital for post-mortem”, Rajan Rayamajhi, Inspector at District Police Office in Myagdi said.

The bodies of the climbers were retrieved using long-line rescue. Mingma Sherpa, the first South Asian to successfully climb all 14 of the world without repeating a summit, coordinated the retrieval mission on Mt Dhaulagiri, the seventh highest peak in the world.

Senior captain at Altitude Air Bibek Khadka conducted the search and evacuation flight at 7,000 meters. In the mission, the IFMGA (International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations) guide Dawa Phinjo Bhote and Lakpa Bhote also were involved.

The recovery mission also involved long-line rescue specialist Lokendra Dhami. As per the Department of Tourism of Nepal, the permit issuing authority the climbers who had gone missing are found dead at an altitude of 7,600 meters on October 8. Those climbers were the part of 14-member group of Russian citizens who arrived Kathmandu about four weeks ago to climb the mountain.

The expedition organiser, IAM trekking agency last week released the names of those climbers — Aleksandr Dusheyko, Oleg Kruglov, Chistikov Vladimir, Nosenko Mikhail, and Shpilevoz Dmitri. The Dhaulagiri-I has an elevation of 8,168m. The team of Russian climbers started off on Sunday at 11pm (local time) but lost contact as they crossed the elevation of 8,000m.

Nepal issued permit to 14 climbers to summit Mount Dhaulagiri for the autumn expedition. The climbers lost contact with base camp officials and fellow climbers at 11:00am on October 6 while at an altitude of 7,600 meters on the peak, which stands at 8,167m. They were confirmed dead on October 8. The bodies were located at an altitude of 6,900m by a rescue helicopter.

Earlier, Valerii Shamalo, a member of the team who had abandoned the summit attempt, was rescued from Camp I and brought to Kathmandu. Denis Aleksenko from Russia as well as Artsiom Tsentsevitski from Belarus had scaled Dhaulagiri on October 5 in an alpine style while six other climbers abandoned their climbing bid earlier. (ANI)